Deleting private conversations / direct messages

[Saphira]

Is there an existing add-on to delete direct messages/private conversations by user? For when someone leaves your forum. It should delete the entire conversation, not just their part, as "halve conversations" are weird, and if any pictures are in that conversation (or videos or whatever), if they're not external links but onto the file system, those files should be removed also.

 

[M@rc]

Have you tried going to the user in the admin panel and selecting the dropdown?



If that's not enough, maybe this addon because it has a delete option:

Thread 'Conversation search plus [Paid]'

Jun 20, 2018

AndyB submitted a new resource:

Conversation search plus - Allows searching all conversations.

Premium upgrade:

This XF2 add-on along with the entire collection can be purchased for $25.00 USD. Your Premium upgrade will allow you to download as many XF2 add-ons as you like for one year. Please see the entire collection located in the Resources area at this URL:

https://www.xf2addons.com/

Note: all my XF1 add-ons are still 100% free and are supported by donations.

Description:

Allows searching all conversations.

This add-on is designed for...

• AndyB
• Replies: 40
• Forum: Add-on releases [2.x]

 

[Saphira]

Thank you, that solves part of the problem, it deletes conversations started by him but not those in which he was involved but not starter.

 

[D33_UK]

I was going to suggest a bit of SQL as a solution but then realised that "Conversations" can have multiple parties and so deleting all the messages in a conversation would not just cover those to/from a particular individual but between all parties.

Also, might be a bit dodgy deleting data created by someone other than the target user

It is simple to delete all outbound messages from a user and it is relatively simple to create a list of conversations the user has been party too

 

[Saphira]

Perhaps. I haven't looked into it yet in detail.

 

[D33_UK]

Well just to leaving my thinking here in case it helps.

SELECT xf_conversation_message.username, xf_conversation_message.message FROM xf_conversation_message
JOIN xf_conversation_user ON xf_conversation_message.conversation_id = xf_conversation_user.conversation_id
WHERE xf_conversation_user.owner_user_id = 'xxx';

This should list all messages to/from the user (I think!!!!)

 

[Saphira]

Thanks. I'll take a look tomorrow, for today I'm brainfried.

 

[Marcus]

Thank you, that solves part of the problem, it deletes conversations started by him but not those in which he was involved but not starter.

Wow really ? To be fair for most situations yo do that to a spammer and it works pretty good. I think it should be renamed Delete Conversations started by user but thats too long for a title maybe.

 

[Saphira]

It depends on the type of forum you have, I suppose. Mine is of a nature where most people value their privacy. I wouldn't want anyone at any later date to read someone's conversations, after that person had left the site. If I would leave a site like it, I would want mine to be deleted also. I'm just being protective over my community.

Anyway, for future reference, these are the steps:
1) Obtain user_id value from the xf_user table.
2) Based on that user_id, obtain a list of conversation_id from table xf_conversation_message
3) Delete from xf_conversation_message, xf_conversation_master, xf_conversation_user and xf_conversation_recipient where conversation_id in the list you found.

I'm not sure how it would work if any of those contained attachments - that seemed to be not applicable in this case.