Sitecore delete old item versions

Are your Sitecore editors version-trigger-happy? Is your master database items drowning in old versions that will never be used – or is just exact replicas of the previous version?

Many versions of the same item

Fear not, you can in fact – with a little bit of code of course – recycle versions of items.

This tiny class will recursively run through items from the root of your choice, and recycle versions, except those you wish to keep:

namespace MyCode
{
  private class Cleanup
  {
    public void CleanUpItemVersions(Item item, int maxVersionCount)
    {
      int latestVersionNumber = item.Versions.GetLatestVersion().Version.Number;
      if (latestVersionNumber > maxVersionCount)
      {
        int latestVersionToKeep = latestVersionNumber - maxVersionCount;
        RecycleVersions(item, latestVersionToKeep);
      }

      foreach (Item child in item.Children)
      {
        CleanUpItemVersions(child, maxVersionCount);
      }
    }

    private static void RecycleVersions(Item item, int latestVersionToKeep)
    {
      Item[] versions = item.Versions.GetVersions();
      foreach (Item version in versions)
      {
        if (version.Version.Number <= latestVersionToKeep)
        {
          version.RecycleVersion();
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

USAGE:

This method will clean all but the latest 3 version from all english items below /sitecore/content/home:

publicvoid CleanUpItemVersions()
{
  Database master = Database.GetDatabase("master");
  Item rootItem = master.GetItem("(sitecore/content/home", LanguageManager.GetLanguage("en"));
  var cleanup = new Cleanup();
  cleanup.CleanUpItemVersions(rootItem, 3);
}

MORE TO READ:

• Creating Numbered Item Versions in Sitecore from RoundedCube
• Understanding content versions in Sitecore by Grant Bartlett, Nonlinear Digital