Automate Old Record Deletion with Prunable in Laravel

Managing outdated data? Here's a real-world example of how I automated deleting old "Activity" records in my Laravel project using the Prunable trait. Let's dive in!

Scenario: Cleaning Up Old Activities

In my application, I have an Activity model that tracks various user actions. Over time, this table gets bloated with unnecessary records. To keep things optimized, I decided to automatically delete activities older than 6 months.

Here’s How I Did It

Set Up Prunable in the Activity Model

First, I added Laravel's Prunable trait to the Activity model:

<?php  

namespace App\Models;  

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;  
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Prunable;  
use Carbon\Carbon;  

class Activity extends Model  
{  
    use Prunable;  

    /**  
     * Get the prunable query.  
     *  
     * @return \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Builder  
     */  
    protected function prunable()  
    {  
        // Select activities older than 6 months  
        return static::where('created_at', '<', now()->subMonths(6));  
    }  

    /**  
     * Handle the pruning process for each prunable model.  
     */  
    protected function pruning()  
    {  
        \Log::info('Pruning Activity ID: ' . $this->id . ', Details: ' . $this->details);  
    }  

    /**  
     * Handle post-pruning actions.  
     */  
    protected function pruned()  
    {  
        \Log::info('Activity ID ' . $this->id . ' successfully deleted!');  
    }  
}

Schedule Automatic Deletion

To automate this, I used Laravel's task scheduler. Here's how I scheduled the pruning command:

// For laravel 11   "routes/console.php"

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schedule;
Schedule::command('model:prune')->daily();

// For Laravel 10 and Earlier Versions "Kernel.php"
protected function schedule(Schedule $schedule)  
{  
    $schedule->command('model:prune')->daily();  
} 

Why This Approach Rocks

• Keeps your database clean without manual effort.

• Built-in Laravel feature means less custom code.

• Logs for accountability (so you know what’s being deleted).