10+ posts now and no one has suggested a better way of removing 45k worth of unactivated members.

Because there is no better way. :)

Thanks for the info so far guys :rolleyes: :confused:

I guess I was thinking those 45k people were going to eventually click the activation link in the email in the upcoming 6 years (j/k) until I recently emailed them all a new activation link and realized most of the emails bounced back.

I guess I should never let this happen again sounds like the best idea. lol

Pruning or deleting means I have to click 999 members one by one 45 times. That sounds like a really great option right there. Thank goodness for support forums or else I might of had to click 999 members one by one 45 times.

I am looking into a PHP fix as mentioned above.

So, instead of taking the fairly easy way out, and pruning of your users in batches, in what we officially recommend (seriously, its what we recommend). You're going to wait and let the problem continue to grow so you can save some amount of time/clicks?

:rolleyes: lets not use the options that are fairly easy, right infront of us. That'd be silly.

Sorry if you won't use the recommend options many here have told you and come back with a crap load of problems do you think anyone will help you out fixing them

But as I like to help try this but not sure it will work on your version

I'd rather know exactly when and how someone is pruned and not depend on a mod. Cleaning 45k users won't take more then 15 mins by pruning 999 at a time. Far less time then has been spent on this thread.
Deleting users from the databse is certianlly not the best way to do this as ozzy has stated.

Line of the year so far.

Isn't there a "check all" box at the top?

New forum owner here (took over an existing site).

I just pruned out a bunch on v3.7.1. Did a search on users that haven't posted in "x" time, had less than 1 post, haven't been on the site for six months, etc.. It came up with 51K+ non-users (mainly spammers - they all need to be beaten about the shins with a stick).

It removes 999 at a time and I clicked 52 times. Pain, but works. Once I got the place clean, I've been staying on top of it.

I check my new registrations every morning while I sit and drink my coffee. Usually it's about 20 new users and of that only three or four will be legit.

I cross reference each IP address (google ip spam, then paste each IP addy in the search window) and if it comes up on the spam list, I delete that member and block the IP addy.
User CP
vBulletin Options
User Banning Options
There's a window in there to put IP addy's and it will block out those from coming to the site.

Seems to work pretty well and doesn't take long.

To make it go faster, I open each new registration in a new tab instead of clicking on that member and having to go through the search again and again.

I cut/paste the IP in the spam check and if it comes up on any sort of list, I just delete the user and add the IP to the block list. If it comes up legit, I approve the registration. Close each user tab after you decide to keep or delete.

Banning IP's is a waste of time, you should use better Q/A verification, and stop the problem completely.