How do I delete multiple discussions?

[BrianHhare]

Instructor, basing this semester's Canvas site on last semester's site.  I've got quite a few discussions from a previous semester that I want to delete. Is there ANY kind of keyboard shortcut or way of deleting more than one discussion at a time? Click here, wait for the window, click to confirm, wait to refresh..... gaaaaah. I'm going to be here all night.

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

@BrianHhare ...

Unfortunately, there aren't any quick ways to delete a lot of discussion topics all at one time.  (I'm not even sure if there would be any more technical back-end ways to delete multiple topics at one time.  If so, I would defer to those that have more experience in doing that.)  I spent a few minutes searching the Community to see if I could find any existing topics and/or solutions for you, but what I found was only a handful of suggestions for enhancements to Canvas that have now been archived.  For your reference, those are located at:

• Bulk Delete Discussions - Instructure Community - 492220 (canvaslms.com)
• Bulk delete discussion threads - Instructure Community - 299157 (canvaslms.com)
• Bulk Delete Discussions/Assignments/Quizzes - Instructure Community - 497539 (canvaslms.com)

Since these have been archived, you could create your own new idea to be considered for development.  To read more about how to create a new Idea here in the Community, check out the section on "Ideas and Themes" at:

Instructure Community Guide - Instructure Community

Then, head on over to:

Canvas Ideas and Themes - Instructure Community

Click on the blue "View and Submit Ideas" button. On the next page, click on the blue "Submit an Idea" button.

I know this isn't the response you were probably looking for, but I hope it helps to understand how things currently function.

[doldham1]

Hi Brian,

I had the same question and while I don't have a solution per se, I have a workaround that could help--if your discussions are graded.

Graded discussions are considered "Assignments" by Canvas and so are found on the Assignments page as well as the Discussions page.

You can create a separate Assignment Group and move all the Discussions you don't want into that group. That process is time-consuming in itself, but not as bad as individually deleting the Discussions.

Once you've put them all into a single group, just delete the group. Canvas will prompt you to ask whether you want the assignments in the group deleted or moved to another group. Choose delete and presto, the discussions are gone.

I just did this with a bunch of unneeded discussions in my class and it worked great. I was fortunate in that I'd already put them in their own group, so deleting them was a 1-step process.