How To Delete All Archived Cards In Trello

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Using Trello to manage tasks can greatly improve your productivity. However, as you continue to use it, you may need to maintain it consistently. One task that may require maintenance is deleting archived cards, as they can accumulate and potentially disrupt your workflow. This guide will demonstrate how you can easily delete all archived cards in Trello, allowing you to maintain a clean and efficient workspace.

Understanding Trello Archives

Before proceeding, it’s crucial to understand what archiving in Trello means. Archiving a card in Trello does not delete it. It simply moves the card out of your immediate view and into an ‘Archived Items’ section. This function is useful for cleaning up finished tasks without losing their history. However, if these archived cards become too numerous, you might want to delete them entirely.

Deleting Single Archived Card

Let’s start by explaining how to delete a single archived card:

  1. Go to your Trello board and click on “Show menu”
  2. Click on “More” and then on “Archived Items”
  3. Select the card you want to delete and click on “Delete”
  4. Confirm the deletion to permanently delete the card

You have now deleted a single archived card. But what if you want to delete all archived cards at once? Unfortunately, Trello does not currently offer a built-in feature to delete all archived cards in one go. However, you can utilize Trello’s API to achieve this. Let’s see how!

Deleting All Archived Cards Using Trello API

Before we proceed, please note that this method requires some familiarity with APIs and programming languages. We will be using Python in our example.

Firstly, you need to get your Trello API Key and Token. Visit https://trello.com/app-key to retrieve your API Key and Token.

Next, you’ll need to find the ID of your board. You can do this by opening your Trello board in a web browser and checking the URL. The board ID is the string found after “trello.com/b/”.

Once you have your API Key, Token, and Board ID, use the following Python script to delete all archived cards:

    
    import requests

    API_KEY = 'your_api_key'
    TOKEN = 'your_token'
    BOARD_ID = 'your_board_id'

    def delete_all_archived_cards(api_key, token, board_id):
        url = f"https://api.trello.com/1/boards/{board_id}/cards"
        headers = {
            "Accept": "application/json"
        }
        query = {
            'key': api_key,
            'token': token,
            'filter': 'closed'
        }
        response = requests.request(
           "GET",
           url,
           headers=headers,
           params=query
        )
        all_archived_cards = response.json()
        for card in all_archived_cards:
            card_id = card['id']
            delete_url = f"https://api.trello.com/1/cards/{card_id}"
            response = requests.request(
                "DELETE",
                delete_url,
                headers=headers,
                params=query
            )
            print(f"Deleted card: {card_id}")

    delete_all_archived_cards(API_KEY, TOKEN, BOARD_ID)
    


Replace ‘your_api_key’ with your API Key, ‘your_token’ with your Token, and ‘your_board_id’ with your Board ID.


This script works by first retrieving all archived cards on the specified board and then sending a delete request for each card. Please use this script responsibly as deleted cards cannot be recovered.


I hope this guide helps you maintain a clean and effective Trello workspace. Remember, regular maintenance of your digital tools is a key aspect of staying organized and productive!