Ability to delete all completed tasks in a note with a single command

[TonyAtlas]

⚠️ Check request is valid.

• My request is about the Tasks plugin for Obsidian.
• I am only requesting a single feature in the Tasks plugin. Multiple changes should be split into individual requests, with links between them.
• I believe my requested feature will be generally applicable to other Tasks plugin users, not just me: it is not uniquely tied to my personal workflow.

⚠️ Please check that this feature request hasn't been suggested before.

• I searched previous Tasks plugin Ideas in Discussions didn't find any similar feature requests.
• I searched previous Tasks plugin Issues didn't find any similar feature requests.

🔖 Feature description

I suggest adding a command that will delete all completed tasks in a note. I attach an example of how it looks like to the video:

Pic_20250116_111049.mp4

✔️ Solution

My format of work implies not to delete tasks immediately after their execution, but to process the list of completed tasks separately by the end of the working day for reporting purposes.

I would also like to mention a pleasant emotional moment that allows you to see at the end of the day how much was done today.

At the same time, it is not convenient and time-consuming to manually delete tasks that lie in different parts of the list every time

❓ Alternatives

Now I use the Archiver plugin to perform this function. Its work is just shown in the video above.
But I had to put it in just for this command alone. If this option was in the Tasks plugin, I could have removed Archiver, getting rid of the unnecessary plugin.

📝 Additional Context

No response

[claremacrae]

About the request

Thanks for the suggestion.

We have a few related requests for bulk edits and commands already in Discussions - but none exactly matches this:

• Discussions: is:open label:"scope: bulk edits"
• Discussions: is:open label:"scope: commands"

As you kindly say, there is already a plugin that does this, so it would be a very low priority to spend my time on this just to allow people to delete another plugin, given the scary size of the existing Tasks backlog 😢.

Thoughts on implementation

If this is implemented, the author will need to consider carefully, and thoroughly test, how it handles nested tasks and their children.

It is easy to delete a task and convert all its children to an indented code block, thus converting any child tasks to plain-text strings.

Before

- [ ] level 1
    - [x] level 2
        - [ ] level 3

```tasks
path includes {{query.file.path}}
show tree
```

After

level 3 looks like it is still present in the file, but because it is doubly indented, it is no longer a list item according to Obsidian - I think it's a code block instead.

And so it disappears from task searches, according to Obsidian search, dataview, Tasks and so on...

- [ ] level 1
        - [ ] level 3

```tasks
path includes {{query.file.path}}
show tree
```

[claremacrae]

Regarding nested tasks, the safest thing is probably to err on the safe side, and say that:

• if there are nested items inside a task, do not delete it
• unless it only contains other completed tasks
• and those nested tasks also only at most contain other nested completed tasks...

(It's turtles all the way down...)

[TonyAtlas]

Thank you for your detailed response!

When I wrote this request, I realized that you have so many other feature requests. I agree that there are many clearly more important ones among them.
So I assumed that my request would have a very low priority and I might have to wait a month or even a year or two for this feature to be implemented.

So I agree with you and left this feature request for the future. Someday it will come to it 😄

In the meantime, of course, I will use a separate plugin.
I'm just trying to keep my vault performance and so I don't use too many plugins.

But your plugin is one of the most important for me. Thank you very much!

[TonyAtlas]

Regarding nested tasks, the safest thing is probably to err on the safe side, and say that:

• if there are nested items inside a task, do not delete it
• unless it only contains other completed tasks
• and those nested tasks also only at most contain other nested completed tasks...

(It's turtles all the way down...)

I think this solution makes the most sense to me! 👍

[claremacrae]

Thanks for your understanding, Tony.

I might have to wait ... a year or two for this feature to be implemented.

Hahah, I love your optimism, there! 😃