How do I Mass Delete over 45k Inactive Users?
 

We have over 45,000 Inactive Users Awaiting Email Confirmations in VB 4.2.2. We want to delete these users that have been inactive for 90 days with 0 posts.

The prune user group option lets you do 999 users at once but I have to sit there and click 999 users one by one to delete all at once. Or if we do a promotion, we are still limited to the 999 at a time.

I tried installing the "Users Clean UP" product Vitaly created on here but that seems to not be running on VB 4.2.2.

Much thanks in advance for your help!

I always keep on top of these things you will just have to prune 999 at a time so start clicking maybe next time you will keep on top of things like this and not leave it for so long hope you learn from this

Can't see that as being overly helpful. :erm:

jazmos - if you don't have a function available to do this it would be easy to sort out using phpmyadmin. Just run a basic query to delete members in the unactivated usergroup.

No, you will mess up the other tables if you do that, The user info is stored in many places.

<a href="https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=244707" target="_blank">https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=244707</a>

He did that already.

It is being helpful if he did then he would not have this problem now. Now he will have to learn the hard way and wont make this mistake again

Once you have the user group id you can work through as many tables as you need updating info. Especially easy if it's a simple delete function.

The prune option is the best, fastest and makes sure no tables have been missed

It is not the the best method, and I have seen way to many things get jacked up when people try and take a shortcut like this.

By now anyone could have clicked the 45 times it would take to accomplish what he was after.

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.

I'm up to about 15 questions and still adding them.

I figure the IP ban can't hurt, right? Or is it really that much of a waste of time?

Banning the IP's is a waist of time, they can change them as needed.

install this

Sure it can. Today's spammer IP might easily be tomorrow's legitimate user, in today's internet.

Banning IPs is so 20th Century, really.

Then I guess I'll get the install listed above you done and go in and remove my banned IP addresses. I don't want to kill off legit members, just stop the junk.

jazmos, I've just done this. I'm using VB 5.1.5. Today I deleted 16,000 inactive members after sending them emails giving them the opportunity to make one post to be saved. Many did, most didn't, so today I chopped them. I did it in prune/move users. They're right above saying you can only delete 999 at a time, but I couldn't mass untick them all to select 999.

This worked: I went to the User Moving/Pruning System and deleted them by selecting a few months at a time. It took me about 30 minutes to do all of them but at least I didn't have to sit there clicking on 9999999 names. Good luck!

To stop future issues you can also use:
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=236117

You can set it to automatically prune "Users Awaiting Email Confirmation" after xx days.

I personally set it for 30 days. If they don't activate their account within 30 days of registering the account gets deleted automatically.