Delete unused properties and content types in CMS 12

The purpose of this blog is to delete unused properties, content references, and content types programmatically and keep clean content.

Problem: I have created a block type (e.g. TeaserBlock) and using this block created multiple contents and used it in different places, but after some time the requirement was changed and I removed this block type completely from the code. So for cleanup, we need to remove this block type from the Admin --> Content Types area in CMS because it no longer exists. But when I tried to delete it, we got content reference warnings because we already created content using a specific block type and added those references at many places (e.g. Main Content Area of other pages).

Then the question comes to mind how to delete it? So I tried the following solution and fixed it.

Solution: 

We have two options two remove the missing content type and its references:

1. Remove all references from each content type and then delete it from the Admin -> Content Types area. - This is a time-consuming activity because you need to visit and delete each content type (moving and emptying the Trash folder).
2. Write the code and clean up it programmatically.

I am using the second (2) option to achieve this.

Where do you write the code? I will suggest in the Initialization Module or create a Schedule Job to delete the unused properties and content types. It’s totally up to you  :)

Delete the missing properties which are no longer exist in the code for Content Type (PageType/BlockType): (e.g. TeaserBlock -> Sub Title)

 private void DeleteUnUsedProperties()
 {
            var pageTypeRepository = ServiceLocator.Current.GetInstance<IContentTypeRepository<PageType>>();
            var propertyDefinitionRepository = ServiceLocator.Current.GetInstance<IPropertyDefinitionRepository>();
            foreach (var type in pageTypeRepository.List())
            {
                foreach (var property in type.PropertyDefinitions)
                {
                    if (property != null && !property.ExistsOnModel)
                    {
                        propertyDefinitionRepository.Delete(property);
                    }
                }

               this.DeleteContentType(type);
            }

            var blockTypeRepository = ServiceLocator.Current.GetInstance<IContentTypeRepository<BlockType>>();
            foreach (var type in blockTypeRepository.List())
            {
                foreach (var property in type.PropertyDefinitions)
                {
                    if (property != null && !property.ExistsOnModel)
                    {                     
                        propertyDefinitionRepository.Delete(property);
                    }
                }

                this.DeleteContentType(type);
            }
        }

Delete the content references and missing content type (e.g. TeaserBlock)

  private void DeleteContentType(ContentType contentType)
  {
            if (contentType.ModelType != null)
            {
                return;
            }

            if (contentType.Saved != null &&
                contentType.Created.HasValue &&
                contentType.Created.Value.Year > 2021 &&
                contentType.IsAvailable)
            {
                // Find and deletes the content based on type.
                var contentModelUsage = ServiceLocator.Current.GetInstance<IContentModelUsage>();
                var contentUsages = contentModelUsage.ListContentOfContentType(contentType);
                var contentReferences = contentUsages
                    .Select(x => x.ContentLink.ToReferenceWithoutVersion())
                    .Distinct();

                var contentRepository = ServiceLocator.Current.GetInstance<IContentRepository>();
                foreach (var contentItem in contentReferences)
                {
                    contentRepository.Delete(contentItem, true, EPiServer.Security.AccessLevel.NoAccess);
                }

                // Delete type of content.
                var contentTypeRepository = ServiceLocator.Current.GetInstance<IContentTypeRepository>();
                if (contentType.ID > 4)
                {
                    contentTypeRepository.Delete(contentType.ID);
                }
            }
  }

Note: CotentType.ID > 4 means this will exclude the system/predefined page types e.g. Root Page.

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