Please be aware that Mailchimp have changed how to removed contacts. Please see the newer article on how to archive and permanently delete contacts in Mailchimp.
Yesterday I posted instructions on how to delete unsubscribed and cleaned Mailchimp contacts. I’ve had a few queries since whether it’s possible to bulk delete unsubscribed contacts (General Data Protection Regulation GDPR requirements seem to be prompting these questions). Unfortunately I am not aware of a means of quickly deleting many unsubscribed contacts. Below are instructions on the quickest way that I know of to delete unsubscribed contacts.
How to bulk delete Mailchimp unsubscribed contacts
Follow these instructions to mass delete your unsubscribed contacts:
- Create a segment where Email Marketing Status is Unsubscribed.
- Whilst viewing the contacts in the segment, change View to 100 (this will be at the bottom of the window).
- Click the empty select box next to each unsubscribed contact.
- Click the Delete button near the top of the page.
- Click Delete again.
If you have more than 100 contacts then you’re able to select then delete 100 contacts at a time.
Hi Gary,
How do we delete multiple cleaned contact? We made a segment, but it is not possible to choose them by using the checkbox. Do we have to delete them one by one?
Thanks,
Peter
Hi Peter,
Unfortunately yes, the cleaned contacts need to be deleted individually 🙁
Just a small addition. There is an arrow pointing down above the checkboxes for the contacts. If you click that it gives you an option to select all on the page.
I have the same problem: We had a quite huge list and did a GDPR campaign. More than 120,000 contacts do not explicitly want to receive further emails. To my understanding to be GDPR compliant we have to delete all data of these 120,000 contacts. Even with “select all” we would have to do that for 1,200 times… Am I wrong or does Mailchimp not provide the tools to be GDPR compliant?
Bulk deleting contacts: At this time, to mass delete contacts at one time (e.g. 120,000) in Mailchimp this can only be done via the API. I’m in Australia and am not fully conversant with GDPR but are you sure that you need to delete these people from your list (would unsubscribing them meet the compliance needs?)?
Mailchimp GDPR compliance: As far as I’m aware Mailchimp is GDPR compliant. If you want to know more then I recommend contacting Mailchimp directly.
Hi Gary,
I tried the same method to bulk delete unsubscribed users, well even thought Mailchimp notify me of successfully deleting them. All the users are still in the list when I re-checked.
And when I selected only one user and tried the same, I got the following error:
Error
0 members successfully deleted!
1 email was not included (the contact unsubscribed or has been cleaned).
Am I doing anything wrong ?
Thank you.
I know there were issues yesterday in Mailchimp whereby list deletes were taking quite awhile to show. Is all ok now?
Hi Gary,
Thanks for the reply, I tried the same method now. Unfortunately no luck, it’s the same.
But this is the new error when I selected one to delete:
Error
1 contact was not deleted (already unsubscribed, did not opt in to marketing, cleaned).
Thank you.
Hi Gary,
Yes, I think it was problem with Mailchimp for few days. It worked.
Thank you 🙂
Very helpful. Thank you.
Can you simply segment them by tagging as unscribed then sort to the tag, click on visible contacts only then delete?
Yes, this should work
Hi,
I created a segment for contacts that opted in to my mailing list (as required by GDPR). How do I delete all of the contacts that are not in this segment? I created a segment of unsubscribed though this only includes a small portion of those who did not opt in. I do not see a Delete button when I selected the first 100 contacts in the View.
thanks
John
You should be able to “Select Visible” and then click delete. Can you do this?
Hi Gary,
Hope you see my message too. There is a change that the Forever free plan includes 2000 contacts and no longer 2000 subs
So, I want to DELETE my cleaned and unsubscribed contacts.
Would that be your suggestion? Which could I delete and will it then really be deleted from contacts?
Sine I have 500+ contacts but only 400 subs
Thanks
Hi Rachel, yes you can easily delete unsubscribed and/or deleted contacts from your audience.
I am looking to achieve the same as a result of MC change in the Forever free plan- delete all of my 15,000 unsubscribed contacts. But the only way I see is to “select visible” which only deletes 100 at a time. Is there a way to delete ALL unsubscribed at once?
Unfortunately it’s a slow process of selecting all contacts in a screen (max 100) and deleting those.
I’m glad it’s not just me finding it very tedious to delete 100 people at a time! Gary, do you have nay thoughts on archive v delete?
Hi Steph, please see https://organicweb.com.au/marketing/mailchimp-audience-delete-archive/
Maybe Mailchimp don’t want you deleting contacts as it will change the charging threshold.. ie we have over 11,000 contacts but if we go below 10,000 the price drops by half!
I’ll be trying your delete instructions tomorrow, thanks.
Hi Gary, I was notified by Mailchimp that they are changing their pricing policy, and for free “legacy” plan users, like me, they count both my subscribed and unsubscribed contacts toward the 2000 free limit. They say I have 1079 unsubscribed contacts and 1988 subscribed contacts. I’ve tried to go to the “new segment” section to identify the unsubscribes, but when I do this, it tells me I have 0 unsubscribed contacts. For the life of me, I can’t find the 1079 unsubscribed contacts anywhere. I’d like to just delete them. Any help would be greatly appreciated, as they have given us an 8/7 deadline to do this or switch to a paid plan. Also, they said they would offer a one-time chat session, but no where on the site does it give you instructions as to how to chat with them.
Hi Julie, without logging in to your account unfortunately I can’t advise where the mystery unsubscribed contacts are. As for accessing Mailchimp chat support try to find it per https://organicweb.com.au/marketing/find-mailchimp-support/ or alternately there should be contact details on the email they would have sent you.
This continues to be a complete PITA. Mailchimp are clearly doing this on purpose to publish people with a lot of unsubscribed people on their lists. It’s a completely nightmare to have to do this 100 at a time!
I can create a segment of unsubscribed people and view all. But there is no Delete Option or View All option. What am I missing?
Sorry – I can create segment and see 100 at the bottom, but no View All option or Delete Option. Thanks!
Hi Karen, Mailchimp have recently changed how subscribers are removed. Please see https://organicweb.com.au/marketing/tutorial-archive-mailchimp-contacts/
If you try to reimport deleted email addresses then there is a message that this email address has been previously deleted. So logically this means even after a delete Mailchimp is actually still storing email addresses to check against. This doesn’t seem to comply with their GDPR commitment to delete all data associated with an account.