How do I Mass Delete over 45k Inactive Users?

[K-fab]

Originally Posted by Zachery

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?

[ozzy47]

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

[ForceHSS]

Originally Posted by K-fab

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.

install this

[Max Taxable]

Originally Posted by K-fab

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?

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.

[K-fab]

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.

[rhondajean]

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!

[bzcomputers]

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.