Deleting messages in a channel automatically

VictorLamoine · June 6, 2019, 3:35pm

For people who are looking for an alternative to the data retention feature but are using the open source version I have made a small guide:

gitlab.com

InstitutMaupertuis/mattermost-old-messages/blob/master/README.md

This guide will help you delete old messages and attachments from your Mattermost Open Source edition server.

This procedure is very similar to what the [data retention](https://docs.mattermost.com/administration/data-retention.html) option of Mattermost `Enterprise Edition E20` does.

:warning: Run this at your own risk! I strongly suggest making a backup of your Mattermost directories and MySQL database before running these commands :warning

# Generate a timestamp
This will be the limit date for the messages to keep (messages before this date will be deleted).
Use https://www.epochconverter.com/ or Unix commands to generate the timestamp for your date.

- For example: `1527811200` corresponds to the first of june 2018.
- In Mattermost database timestamps are stored with sub seconds accuracy so you need to multiply this timestamp by 1000 for later use.

In this example we will use `1527811200000`, tweak the commands with your own timestamp.

## List old messages / attachments
Open the MySQL prompt on your server and issue these queries

```sql
SELECT * FROM FileInfo WHERE CreateAt < 1527811200000 LIMIT 10;

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Deleting messages in a channel automatically

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