Important Considerations When Deleting Large Volumes of Data Using Data Loader

When deleting a large volume of data using Data Loader, there is a limitation in cases where, within multiple objects that have master-detail relationships or lookup relationships, 100,000 or more child records are deleted at the same time as their parent records in a single operation. In such cases, the deletion cannot be completed.

To avoid this, if there is an object relationship such as parent → child → grandchild → great-grandchild, please delete the records in the order of great-grandchild, grandchild, child, and parent.

In addition, this limitation also counts data that exists in the Recycle Bin, as well as data that has been deleted from the Recycle Bin and is waiting for physical deletion.

The physical deletion process is executed by a server-side process on an instance-by-instance basis. This process is designed to run during periods when overall server resource usage is low, and it is not executed on an organization basis, user basis, object basis, or at regular time intervals. It may take several days, and in some cases more than one week, for data deleted from the Recycle Bin to be physically deleted.

If the deletion does not complete due to this limitation, please try deleting the data again after waiting a few days.

In addition, if a single parent record does not have 100,000 or more child records, it may be possible to avoid this issue by setting the Batch Size to 1 in the Data Loader Settings menu so that multiple parent records are not deleted in a single operation.

Please note that reducing the Batch Size will increase the number of API calls. Be sure to also consider the following API limits.

■ Limits

System Overview: API Usage

■ How the Limit Is Counted

The maximum number of records that can be handled by Data Loader varies depending on the organization’s API call limit and the batch size (the number of records handled in a single API call). For example, if “Batch Size = 200” is set in the Data Loader Settings menu, 200 records are deleted with a single delete() call.

■ Objects Counted

There is no distinction as to whether an object is counted or not. All objects are subject to this limit.