How to delete derived resources?

Itay Taragano

October 29, 2023 07:39
Updated

There are few ways to delete derived resources via the UI and API.

Via API

Delete derived resources by public id
Delete derived resources by transformation
Delete derived resources by derived id
Delete all derived resources in the account

Via API

Note that the Admin API is rate limited and all Admin API delete calls can be found here.

Delete derived resources by public id

In order to bulk delete derived resource using the Admin API we should set the parameter keep_original to true, this ensures that only derived resources are deleted. For example, (in Rails):

Cloudinary::Api.delete_resources(['image1', 'image2'], :keep_original => true)

You can choose to delete only derived resources of a certain type, for example - Facebook fetched profile images:

Cloudinary::Api.delete_all_resources(:type => :facebook, :keep_original => true)

Delete derived resources by transformation¹

You can choose to delete derived resources that use a particular transformation, for example - `w_200,c_limit`:

Cloudinary::Api.delete_resources(:public_ids => ['sample1','sample2'], :transformations => "w_200,c_limit")

Delete derived resources by derived id

Delete assets by their derived id. The derived ids can be retrieved by getting the details of a single resource.

Cloudinary::Api.delete_derived_resources(['cb4eaaf6503','a7b2a2756ab'])

Delete all derived resources in the account¹

You can also use the delete_all_resources method to bulk delete all derived images of your uploaded resources in batches of 1000 resources per call. For example:

Cloudinary::Api.delete_all_resources(:keep_original => true)

1 When there are still more resources to go through, the next_cursor value is returned as part of the response. You can then specify this value as the next_cursor parameter of the following call. This way you can go through the full list of your resources.
For more information, see: http://support.cloudinary.com /hc/en-us/articles/205714121-How-do-I-browse-through-all-resources-in-my-account-using-the-API-

Via UI

You'll need to be logged to your Cloudinary account to perform the following actions:

Delete derived resources individually

Click on the Media Library tab
Select the asset and click on the "Edit" icon
Click on the View derived images button that's right above the image
In the left-hand side, there will be options to delete the derived versions

Bulk delete derived

Click on the gear icon in the top right-hand corner which will take you to a new view
In the right-hand panel, there is a heading called "Support Activities" and under it, there should be a link labeled Bulk delete.

Comments

15 comments

Julien Bornstein

September 03, 2014 21:27
Does delete_all_resources() can be used with a tag filter (delete_all_resources_by_tag() ?)
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Itay Taragano

September 04, 2014 12:07
Deleting all resources sharing a certain tag can be performed with the delete_resources_by_tag Admin API method, e.g., in PHP:

$api->delete_resources_by_tag("mytag");

For more information:

http://cloudinary.com/documentation/admin_api#delete_resources_by_tags

Note that each call deleted up to 1000 resources.
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Forrest Maready

October 01, 2014 14:52
I deleted the resource (containing an incorrect image) before I realized that it wouldn't automatically delete the derived images. Is there any way to delete the derived resources of that now deleted resource? I deleted and recreated the resource, assuming all derived resources would be deleted. Obviously, it doesn't list the derived resources under the new resource, though the URLs are still live and showing an incorrect image.

It seems like I now have no way to delete those "orphaned" resources.

Thanks
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Itay Taragano

October 04, 2014 09:32
Hi Forrest.

Indeed deleting an image also deletes all its derivatives as well. However, note that both the original and the derived images might be still cached in the CDN.

For more information:

http://support.cloudinary.com/entries/23310776-I-have-deleted-an-image-and-though-it-has-been-removed-from-the-media-library-it-is-still-available-

If you want the purge the CDN as well, you should set the invalidate parameter to true while deleting, for example in Rails:

Cloudinary::Uploader.destroy('my_image', :invalidate => true)

Deleting via the Media library automatically invalidates the image. Note that it may take up to an hour for the invalidation to fully propagate through the CDN.
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Forrest Maready

October 14, 2014 18:35
Thank you Itay-

Does the API call purge the CDN any faster than doing it through the Media Library?

Many thanks
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Itay Taragano

October 14, 2014 20:40
Invalidating either through the Admin API or the Media library may both take up to an hour. Note that this requests to propagate through Akamai's entire CDN network (100K+ servers in less than 1 hour).

We warmly recommend to include the version component as part of the URL. Cloudinary's 'version' is a simple "cache busting" solution that acts as a unique name for each uploaded image. Unlike invalidation, 'versions' instantly bypasses all cached versions and force the delivery of the latest version of the image.

For more information:

http://support.cloudinary.com/entries/23663103-What-are-image-versions-
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aster

February 05, 2017 23:25

Edited
Hi I have already set invalidate to "yes" under advanced settings. However, I am still getting the cache of the previous photo when i upload a new image with the same image name. I do not wish to keep track the version in the url and I would like to get the latest image just with the same URL. Could you help me with this? By the way I am using .Net.
Thank you very much.

[UPDATE]
I managed to resolve this issue by storing the version as I realized that no matter what version I provide in the URL e.g. "/v1" or "/v1486331234", it will return the latest image. Thanks
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Nadav Ofir

February 10, 2017 13:28
Hi Aster,

By default URLs that contain version components aren't invalidated.
More information about the default invalidation policy is available here: https://support.cloudinary.com/hc/en-us/articles/209048985-Why-wasn-t-my-URL-properly-invalidated-

If you're still encountering issues, please open a support ticket so we can look deeper into your use case.
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Jamie Shepherd

October 18, 2023 10:37
It seems exceptionally flawed that deleting derived resources by derived id lets you do a bulk delete, however no bulk search for derived ids is indicated.
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Zachary Gould

October 23, 2023 10:33

Edited
Hey there Jamie,

If you know the transformation that you would like to delete assets for you can use the api find all associated derived assets by using our transformation details method.
```
cloudinary.v2.api
.transformation({width: 150, height: 100, crop: 'fill'})
.then(result=>console.log(result));
```
If you're not sure which transformations you're currently using you can always get all transformations first and then iterate through them.

If you still run into any issues finding a specific resource please open a support ticket so we can help.
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Jamie Shepherd

October 23, 2023 14:50
This is the exact problem, if you have multiple transformations you need to delete resources for, iteration is unavoidable. This forces many admin api calls regardless of the bulk deletion method.

It would be fantastic to see a bulk transformation details method or to optionally include derived asset ids when getting all transformations to resolve this issue.

The use case for when this can happen is chained named transformations due to independent variables both adding a named transformation. For example if you were to have a named transformation to crop a video to 1080p, and a named transformation to add captions. It makes sense to have the cropping and captioning named transformations separate and chain them together as they should both be valid separately.
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John Roco

October 25, 2023 07:17
Hi Jamie,

Thank you for the response.

As the feature to bulk delete derived resources via API is not currently supported,

I have submitted a feature request internally to see if it can be added to our roadmap.

Please also feel free to suggest this on our [public roadmap](https://cloudinary.com/roadmap)!

Please let me know if there is anything else I can help you with!

Best,
John
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Jamie Shepherd

October 26, 2023 04:46
Hi John,

Slightly confused here as the "delete_derived_resources" api lets you bulk delete 100 derived assets at a time from derived id - the issue is batch fetching the derived ids to use this method.
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John Roco

October 26, 2023 09:09
Hi Jamie,

Apologies for the confusion, I was responding with the details from our previous conversations in mind. In that conversation, you have two named transformations, i.e. `t_eng_caption` and `t_crop_for_customer`. In your transformations, you usually chain them - `t_eng_caption/t_crop_for_customer`. The request I opened was for the delete_derived_resources API to be able to accept `*t_crop_for_customer*` as a parameter and delete the derived along with its permutations.

As you already know, `delete_derived_resources` has a prerequisite to iterate through necessary public_ids to get the derived `id` using the resource API.

The feature request I submitted is to help with this use case, however, we cannot guarantee any ETA for it.

Hope this clarifies the confusion.
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Jamie Shepherd

October 28, 2023 02:14
Hi John,

Thanks for the clarification, that makes sense. Yes a wildcard like `*t_crop_for_customer*` would also be a very good and concise solution to the issue of permutations when chaining named transformations. Thanks for opening that request, will make things easier in the future.
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