[SalesForce] Truncate or delete all records in a custom object

Using SOQL, how do I truncate an object or delete all rows. For example

DELETE (Select id FROM MyObject__c)

and

delete [select Id FROM MyObject__c]

and

TRUNCATE TABLE MyObject__c

All 3 example commands in the Developer console returns:

The query has to start with 'FIND' or 'SELECT'

Best Answer

You can't perform any DML using SOQL. The 'Q' stands for 'Query'.

If you want to use Execute Anonymous, then you can use:

delete [select id from myobject__c limit 10000];

However, this has a 10,000 row limit, so that might not be appropriate in all cases.

Salesforce can query 50,000 records at a time but due to governor limit it'll allow only 10,000 DML operation

The only way to perform a quick truncate would be to use the UI to initiate the truncate.

Related Solutions

[SalesForce] Delete Operation Too Large – but all related records have been deleted

You must wait between several days up to a week in order to delete the parent record. Even if you empty the recycle bin, the records are not "permanently" deleted until some reaper job on the Salesforce side runs to truly delete them.

If you're in a rush, you can open a case with Salesforce asking to "run a physical delete" on your org. They will require that you agree to empty your recycle bin first.

The deleted records don't count toward your data storage limit.

We have worked around this problem by setting a 'status' field on the parent object to indicate that we want it deleted. After we delete all of the child records, we set the status to 'Deleting'. Then, create a Scheduled Apex job that runs around nightly trying to delete the parent records that are in that status. You must rescue the possible exception and carry on. Sooner or later, the records can be deleted.

Last caveat: sometimes the org gets corrupted and even the 1 week rule doesn't hold true. In that case, you will need to open a case and have them escalate it to R&D for physical deletion. This is rare, but it does happen.

The bit of Scheduled Apex we use looks something like:

List<SupremeQueryResult__c> deletedSnapshots = [SELECT Id FROM SupremeQueryResult__c
                                                WHERE Status__c IN('Deleted','Deleting')];
for(SupremeQueryResult__c result : deletedSnapshots){
    try{
        delete result;
    }
    catch(System.DmlException dmle){
        if(dmle.getDmlType(0) != StatusCode.DELETE_OPERATION_TOO_LARGE){
            throw dmle; //reraise
        }
    }
}

[SalesForce] How to delete ContentDocumentLink records massive

Salesforce has a knowledge article describing the process of Deleting or Archiving items stored in Content: https://help.salesforce.com/apex/HTViewSolution?id=000176873

As well as an article about deleting items from Files: https://help.salesforce.com/apex/HTViewSolution?id=000198685

To answer your questions generally:

You use a report or data loader to produce a CSV file with the item IDs that you want to delete (from Content or FeedItem)
You use the CSV as the source file with DataLoader and you can delete the records in bulk

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[SalesForce] Delete Operation Too Large – but all related records have been deleted

[SalesForce] How to delete ContentDocumentLink records massive

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