Is there a way to delete >1 Million records from a custom Big Object?

Question

First thing that came to my mind was writing a Batch Apex to do this but I get this error.

 System.UnexpectedException: The requested operation is not supported by this SObject

Deleting via Bulk API using Dataloader is not allowed too for some reason.

I only found documentation on this here : https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.bigobjects.meta/bigobjects/big_object_delete.htm

but even then I am only able to delete 50000 rows a time otherwise will get the error :

System.LimitException: Too many query rows: 50001

I'm currently running this code in Anonymous Apex :

List<bigobject__b> BO = new List<bigobject__b>(); 

BO.addAll([SELECT Company_Name__c FROM bigobject__b LIMIT 50000]);

Database.deleteImmediate(BO);

Any suggestions how else I can perform this delete quicker and more efficiently?

Answer 1

I know its an old question, but in future someone might search this for a quick delete of the BigObject records from their org without using a tool.

I designed a solution using a VFPage + RemoteAction.

As the request is from JS, each request is treated as a new request. So it can be triggered multiple times. And the logic break is controlled by the server side boolean parameter.

Controller :

global class DeleteAllBigObject {

    @RemoteAction
    global static Boolean deleteAllBigObject(){
        List<Rider_History__b> cBO = new List<Rider_History__b>();
        List<Rider_History__b> riderHistoryB = [SELECT Rider_Account__c, Start_Time__c FROM Rider_History__b LIMIT 1];
        if(riderHistoryB.isEmpty()){
            return false;
        } else {
            cBO.addAll([SELECT Rider_Account__c, Start_Time__c FROM Rider_History__b LIMIT 49999]);
            Database.deleteImmediate(cBO);
            return true;
        }
    }

}

VFPage:

<apex:page id="HelloWord" controller="DeleteAllBigObject">
    <apex:slds/>
    <script>

        function RemoteActionToDeleteBigObject(){
            Visualforce.remoting.Manager.invokeAction(
                    '{!$RemoteAction.DeleteAllBigObject.deleteAllBigObject}',
                    function(strResult, objEvent){
                        if(strResult){
                            RemoteActionToDeleteBigObject();
                        } else {
                            document.getElementById('DeletionLabel').classList.remove('slds-hide');
                        }
                    },
                    {buffer: false, escape: false, timeout: 120000}
            );
        }

    </script>
    <button onclick="RemoteActionToDeleteBigObject()">Trigger Deletion of Big Object</button>
    <div class="slds-hide" id="DeletionLabel">
        Deletion Done
    </div>
</apex:page>

Just change the bigobject name to your bigObject name, and this code should work fine.

In the else part you can even send an email using remote action.