# Any recommended methodology to delete an org-roam file?
**URL:** https://org-roam.discourse.group/t/any-recommended-methodology-to-delete-an-org-roam-file/54
**Category:** How To
**Created:** [May 5, 2020, 4:22am UTC](https://org-roam.discourse.group/t/any-recommended-methodology-to-delete-an-org-roam-file/54 "2020-05-05T04:22:04Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@sustainednz](https://org-roam.discourse.group/u/sustainednz)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2020, 4:22am UTC](https://org-roam.discourse.group/t/any-recommended-methodology-to-delete-an-org-roam-file/54/1 "2020-05-05T04:22:04Z")
Is there any reason why I shouldn’t just delete an org-roam file? Any risk to database/links etc, is what I’m thinking about. (Sorry if this is too trivial).
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### Author:  [@jethro](https://org-roam.discourse.group/u/jethro)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2020, 6:05am UTC](https://org-roam.discourse.group/t/any-recommended-methodology-to-delete-an-org-roam-file/54/2 "2020-05-05T06:05:45Z")
Right now, deleting a file will result in links to the current file breaking.
If you delete the file using Emacs (with dired, or calling `M-x delete-file`), the cache remains consistent. If you delete the file from outside Emacs, it won’t, but is not a big issue, because running `M-x org-roam-db-build-cache` once more will bring it to a consistent state.
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### Author:  [@sustainednz](https://org-roam.discourse.group/u/sustainednz)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2020, 6:56am UTC](https://org-roam.discourse.group/t/any-recommended-methodology-to-delete-an-org-roam-file/54/3 "2020-05-05T06:56:32Z")
Thank you, that’s very helpful.
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### Author:  [@zoechi](https://org-roam.discourse.group/u/zoechi)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2020, 5:50am UTC](https://org-roam.discourse.group/t/any-recommended-methodology-to-delete-an-org-roam-file/54/4 "2020-05-15T05:50:29Z")
I use `crux-delete-file-and-buffer` [https://github.com/bbatsov/crux](https://github.com/bbatsov/crux)
to delete the file of the current buffer.
That’s a few steps less then `delete-file`
and the cache seems to be updated the same. It probably calls `delete-file` anyway.
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### Author:  [@ethan](https://org-roam.discourse.group/u/ethan)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2020, 5:12am UTC](https://org-roam.discourse.group/t/any-recommended-methodology-to-delete-an-org-roam-file/54/5 "2020-08-18T05:12:05Z")
Any updates on the best way to delete a file?
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### Author:  [@laurent](https://org-roam.discourse.group/u/laurent)
#### Post date: [February 11, 2022, 8:12pm UTC](https://org-roam.discourse.group/t/any-recommended-methodology-to-delete-an-org-roam-file/54/6 "2022-02-11T20:12:51Z")
I currently handle that with a script to remove all the references first, then I delete the file:
```python
#!/usr/bin/env python3
import re
import os
import subprocess
import sys
def get_id(fname):
with open(fname) as f:
content = f.read()
return re.findall(r":ID:\s+(.*)", content)[0]
def notes_with_pattern(pat):
roam_folder = os.path.expanduser("~/.roam/")
raw = subprocess.check_output(f"rg -l {pat} {roam_folder}", shell=True).decode("utf-8")
return raw.splitlines()
def subid(content, ident):
pat = f"\[\[id:{ident}\]\[(.*?)\]\]"
return re.sub(pat, "\\1", content)
def remove_note_mention(fn, ident):
with open(fn) as f:
content = f.read()
newcontent = subid(content, ident)
with open(fn, "w") as f:
f.write(newcontent)
print(f"Edited {fn}")
def delete_note(fname):
ident = get_id(fname)
print(f"Removing id {ident}")
to_edit = [n for n in notes_with_pattern(ident)
if n != fname]
for fn in to_edit:
remove_note_mention(fn, ident)
if __name__ == ' __main__':
delete_note(sys.argv[1])
```
And I call it from emacs with:
```auto
(defun delete-org-roam-note-references ()
(interactive)
(async-shell-command (s-concat "delete_note.py " (buffer-file-name))))
```
Note: It does not work with heading references just whole notes ones.