How to remove all records from MongoDB collection in Discord bot command

[sofiag]

I’m working on a Discord bot and need help creating a command that wipes all user records from my MongoDB database. Right now I have code that only removes one user at a time, but I want to clear the entire collection.

Here’s what I’m currently using:

UserBanSchema.findOneAndRemove(
  {
    serverId: guild.id,
  },
  (error, result) => {
    if (error) console.log(error);
    console.log("Completed");
  }
);

This only deletes a single record but I need to remove all entries from the database. What’s the best way to modify this code to delete every document in the collection?

[Pete_Magic]

You can also use collection.drop() if you want to nuke the entire collection, not just the documents. This is way more aggressive than deleteMany since it wipes indexes too:

const mongoose = require('mongoose');

mongoose.connection.db.collection('userbans').drop((error) => {
  if (error) console.log(error);
  console.log('Collection dropped successfully');
});

For Discord bots though, I’d stick with deleteMany like mentioned above. Pro tip: add safety checks before wiping data - maybe require confirmation from multiple admins or throw in a cooldown period. Trust me, I learned this the hard way after accidentally nuking production data during testing.

[Luna23]

you could also use the remove() method - it’s deprecated but still works in older mongoose versions. I’d stick with deleteMany tho since it’s the current standard. also, use async/await instead of callbacks. makes debugging way easier when stuff breaks.

[alexlee]

Use deleteMany() instead of findOneAndRemove() to clear the whole collection:

UserBanSchema.deleteMany(
  { serverId: guild.id },
  (error, result) => {
    if (error) console.log(error);
    console.log(`Deleted ${result.deletedCount} records`);
  }
);

To wipe everything regardless of serverId, pass an empty object {} as the filter. I’ve done this in several Discord bots - works great. Just double-check your admin permissions since you can’t easily undo this.