Automated expiration & delete of media

[aniqueta]

Description

I'd like to suggest the idea of functionality to set an expiration date and automatically work with Sonarr or Radarr to delete content. The use case is when a user requests media that the server administrator wants to offer but does not want to retain long-term in what is ultimately their personal library, either due to storage space limitations or due to how the admin wishes to curate the library.

A quick search here did not turn up anything like this, so perhaps there is no demand for this, or perhaps it's a cool new idea once people hear about it. :) It seems in the spirit of the name "Overseerr" for the app to oversee the media library in this way.

Desired Behavior

There are global settings to define a default expiration policy (which I assume would be "never delete" for most).

When an administrator approves a request, there is an expiration policy field, already populated with the default. The administrator could change the expiration based on preference.

(To be more more sophisticated, there could also be functionality exposed to the requester to propose an expiration, assuming they already know they just want to check out some media temporarily. This could be opt-in by the admin in the global configuration.)

Overseerr tracks when media becomes available, as it does already I believe. Then when running maintenance, it checks whether the duration of media availability matches expiration. If yes, then it connects with Sonarr or Radarr to delete the content and switch it to unmonitored (instead of deleting completely, to preserve history). At the same time, Overseerr then resets the media as unavailable and unrequested (or something like that), so that a future user could request it again.

(To be more sophisticated, there could also be a overall view available to the admin for all media set to expire, so that they could make changes to expiration policy afterward.)

Edit: There could also be notifications for users who have requested certain media to be alerted when expiration is nearing.

And building off the existing Tautulli integration, in theory, there could be a check if the requester has watched the content or not. If they have, then the expiration notice could be skipped. Although, I don't know if this is reliable enough.

Additional Context

Hope this is an interesting feature request, and I'm curious to hear what the devs & community think.

Code of Conduct

• [X] I agree to follow Overseerr's Code of Conduct

[dalekcoffee]

+1 would love this

[mrdynamo]

Another +1 for this feature. I'm having to manually clear out content after time due to limited space restrictions. Having it be automatic would be a godsend.

[nmbrg]

Not sure if I should “upvote” or comment to show how many users who wants this request. So I’ll do both.

Here’s my comment..

Pleeeeaaase for the love of all things holy (overseerr included) add this feature!

[AngryMooses]

+1 There is no other way to accomplish this. I'd settle for a simple "delete after watched" but I like the detail described above.

[thebigfrolowski]

+1

[michaelknox]

+1

[magicdude4eva]

I hope there is support for this feature. Plex does provide something similar:

But I honestly do not automatically want to set this.

Ideally it should be managed via Overseerr with the default "Keep All". I think options for

• Series: "Keep the last xx episodes" and "Only delete watched media (Y/N)"
• Movies: "Delete watched media after xx days"

For me the cleanup is a storage question. I do not want to keep Daily Episodes around.

[keldian]

A while ago I suggested a version of this where the user can delete their own request files so they can free up their requests quota—that was closed for being a duplicate. Will have to jump ship soon if something like this isn't implemented, as storage space is a finite resource.

By the way, https://github.com/sct/overseerr/issues/1924#issuecomment-886192846

[mtan93]

I am looking for this exact feature, glad I am not the only one needing this!

[LeeDurant]

Seconded! I would love some functionality to manage deletion through Overseerr rather than in Plex or by a script stored elsewhere. Especially allowing the voluntary deletion of self-requested content by users!

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[mtan93]

❤️

[thebigfrolowski]

please please we really need this :)

[noxwaste]

Adding a bump to this feature, because honestly, I'm tired of my hard drives having "leaks" in them due to users requesting things, then never watching them, and then they sit around forever.

[Ninjadude101]

I would also really appreciate the ability to automatically remove content after it has been requested and a certain time frame has elapsed. Preferably the time frame would be configurable per app instance (sonarr, radarr) and perhaps it could also offer per-user overrides of these.

When the time elapses, it could send a notification to the requestee and offer them the option to extend the time or consent to the deletion. After a further waiting period and if the user does not respond, or if the user consents, the media is deleted. A further improvement to this - if there is a Tautulli connection, check to see if other users have watched any, and notify them too. In such cases, media would be deleted only if all those users consented, but it would only take one user to extend the watch timer.

[Gaudon]

Would be a nice feature honestly.. I often get a text message from someone saying "Oh I've finished watching something please remove it now!"

[iamhenry]

would be great to have this feature. adding my vote here too

[Savanta]

Sound amazing, adding my vote

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[LeeDurant]

Bump