Joomla · Joomla Setup

Joomla Tips – Remove Sample Data in Joomla 1.6 Installation

When you installed Joomla 1.6 on your website you had an option to install Sample DataSample Data is used to help you learn how to add data to your website and see how the data flows.  If you want to remove the Joomla Sample Data, don’t be looking for that magical button to remove all sample data.  You have 2 options to remove sample data from your website.

A.  Delete current installation of Joomla 1.6 and reinstall with NO sample data.

This is pretty straight forward.   Benefit to this is that it’s easy and quick.   You can also be sure that there will be no sample data lingering around on the website.  Downside to this option is if you installed Components/modules or made some custom modifications to the template, you will lose it all if you uninstall/reinstall your Joomla 1.6 installation.   This option is relatively easy and below will be steps for Option B.

B.  Manually delete sample data in the Joomla 1.6 administrator backend.

This option requires a little more time.  Benefit is if you made modifications or installed Components/modules you will not lose them.  Another benefit is you get to learn how to navigate around Joomla 1.6 and use components that you might not know about.  Downside is it’s slow and prone to human error.

Option B Steps to delete your Joomla 1.6 sample data manually. All steps must be performed in sequence otherwise you will get errors.  For example, categories cannot be deleted if articles are still assigned to them.

Overview:  You will remove sample data from:

  • Articles
  • Media/Images
  • Contacts
  • Newsfeeds
  • Weblinks
  • Menus
  • Banners

1.  Login to your Joomla 1.6 administrator panel.

2.  Delete Sample Data – Articles:

a.  Click on Content, Article Manager

b.  Select all articles, click on ‘Trash’.

c.  Empty Trash – see below on how to Empty Trash – Step 9

d.  Click on Content, Category Manager

e.  Select all categories, click on ‘Trash’.

f.  Empty Trash – see below on how to empty trash – Step 9

3.  Remove Sample Data – Media:

a.  Click on Content, Media Manager

b.  Delete the folder ‘SampleData’ and it’s subfolders.

4.  Delete Sample Data – Contacts:

a.  Click on Components, Contacts, Contacts

b.  Select all Contacts, click on ‘Trash’.

c.  Empty Trash – see below on how to empty trash- Step 9

d.  Click on Components, Contacts, Categories

e.  Select all Categories, click on ‘Trash’.

f.  Empty Trash – see below on how to empty trash- Step 9

5.  Remove Sample Data – Newsfeeds:

a.  Click on Components, Newsfeeds, Feeds

b.  Select all Feeds, click on ‘Trash’.

c.  Empty Trash – see below on how to empty trash- Step 9

d.  Click on Components, Newsfeeds, Categories

e.  Select all Categories, click on ‘Trash’.

f.  Empty Trash – see below on how to empty trash- Step 9

6.  Delete Sample Data – Weblinks:

a.  Click on Components, Weblinks, Weblinks

b.  Select all Weblinks, click on ‘Trash’.

c.  Empty Trash – see below on how to empty trash- Step 9

d.  Click on Components, Weblinks, Categories

e.  Select all Categories, click on ‘Trash’.

f.  Empty Trash – see below on how to empty trash- Step 9

7.  Remove Sample Data – Menus:

a.  Click on Menus, Menu Manager

b.  Select all Menus – except for Main Menu and User Menu.

c.  Click on ‘Delete’

8.  Remove Sample Data – Banners:  – (Thanks for update from Michael)

a.  Click on Components, Banners, Banners

b.  Select all Banners, click on ‘Trash’.

c.  Click on Components, Banners, Categories

d.  Select all Categories, click on ‘Trash’.

e.  Click on Components, Banners, Clients

f.  Select all Clients, click on ‘Trash’.

g.  Empty Trash – see below on how to empty trash- Step 9

9.  How To Empty Trash:

a.  Use the filter drop down.

b.  Select state = Trash

c.  Select all items in the trash.

d.  Click on button along top to ‘Empty Trash’

After you remove all Joomla sample data, you can refresh your website and there will be no data on your website.  You can start adding your own content.  If I missed anything, feel free to leave a comment to let me know.  Thanks!

Elaine

Elaine@cmsmind.com

11 thoughts on “Joomla Tips – Remove Sample Data in Joomla 1.6 Installation

  1. Everything worked like a charm, except on section 8 – you need to trash the items from the Banner tab (Components, Banners, Banners), before the Categories. Was able to trash the Categories, but it would let me delete them as there were still 3 items under Banners associated with the category.

    Otherwise fantastic! Thanks for the help!

  2. Great step by step guide. Having gone through it myself, here are a couple of notes:

    – if you remove all sample banners, might as well remove the images associated with them in the media manager

    – for the menu clean-up, you have to go one level deeper and remove most of the menu items in each menu you keep as well, since the content they point to is not there any longer. For instance for the “Main Menu” I like to keep just the “home” and “site administrator” items, to get an idea of how the menu will look like in my fresh new site.

    – I would also recommend keeping the “Top” menu and removing unnecessary items from it like above. Many templates use it and removing it altogether is not advisable.

    Hope this helps.
    Cheers.

    1. Hi Dragos,
      Thanks for the great tips. I’m sure people will benefit from this. I will try to add it to my post later.
      thanks for your visit,
      elaine

  3. Hmm I deleted by Cloud Control Panel: Clear all content
    And now I don’t know how to make a new menu or create a top menu ??
    Did I delete all the modules ? What went wrong?

    1. Hi Marlijn,
      I’m not too familiar with Cloud Control Panel – clear all data. Is your Joomla installation still there? Was it a new installation? Can you reinstall and choose ‘no sample data’?
      Thanks for your visit,
      elaine

  4. Oh, I wish I would have come across this article before I tried to delete the sample data. I started doing it manually, but did not follow any given order and now the site is down because of errors! Hopefully I can delete the file on my host server and start over, this time forgoing the sample data option.

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