My college has been with the Canvas learning management system for a few years now. There are many things I like about it, but the cumbersome number of clicks it takes to delete a bunch of pages is not one of them. And I wanted to delete a bunch of pages.
We recently turned on “Atomic Search” within Canvas that allows instructors and students to search within a course. If a page is published, it’s fair game to be returned in search results. As I copied courses from quarter to quarter to quarter, I never had to worry about those unused pages. They weren’t linked to anything, so students had no way to get to them. But now, with search, they do. I have to delete or at least unpublish dozens and dozens of pages. Over 100 pages. Unfortunately, Canvas does not have a native bulk delete feature where you can just check boxes next to what you want to delete, and then click a button to delete them all. That would be awesome. Instead, Canvas pages can only be deleted one by one. And the last thing I want to do is delete 100+ pages one by one.
Because of how Canvas is built, however, knowledgeable individuals can build tools that will make using Canvas easier, such as using a Google spreadsheet to change assignment due dates. In this case, a shout out to James Jones for creating a way to delete or unpublish a bunch of Canvas pages in one fell swoop using Google spreadsheets.
Follow the instructions. All you need is a Google account.
