Automate Database Cleanup with Prunable and MassPrunable

Use Laravel's Prunable and MassPrunable traits to periodically delete stale database records using scheduled Artisan commands.

Applications frequently accumulate transient data: expired authentication tokens, unverified accounts, old activity logs, and discarded shopping carts.

Laravel provides the Prunable and MassPrunable traits to declare pruning queries directly on the model.

Implementing Prunable

Add the Prunable trait and define a prunable() method returning a query builder instance:

namespace App\Models;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Builder;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Prunable;

class ActivityLog extends Model
{
    use Prunable;

    public function prunable(): Builder
    {
        // Delete records older than 90 days
        return static::where('created_at', '<=', now()->subDays(90));
    }

    protected function pruning(): void
    {
        // Optional hook: Clean up related storage files before deletion
    }
}

High-Performance Cleanup with MassPrunable

If you do not need model deletion events or file cleanup hooks, use MassPrunable. It executes a single DELETE query directly in SQL for maximum throughput:

namespace App\Models;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Builder;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\MassPrunable;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class TempUpload extends Model
{
    use MassPrunable;

    public function prunable(): Builder
    {
        return static::where('created_at', '<=', now()->subHours(24));
    }
}

Scheduling Pruning

Register the model:prune command in your application scheduler:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schedule;

Schedule::command('model:prune')->daily();

Summary

• Prunable fires Eloquent model events and invokes the pruning() method for each deleted record.
• MassPrunable runs direct SQL delete queries in chunks without firing individual model events.
• Run php artisan model:prune or schedule it daily to keep table sizes optimal.