On further thought, live archiving of repeater done-timestamps could
happen automatically if the org code was changed to allow a destination
for the done-timestamps.
In that case, IF the item has a level 2 repeater and IF it has an
archive property, then set the destination to the archive property
location (which would be the archive file and duplicate headline there.)
At least without hints, this seems beyond my ability, due to my elisp &
org coding inexperience, which is not helped by the limited or no
comments in some of the related code.
Btw, I've been using org mode since 2008, so you can imagine how many
excess repeater done-timestamps are in my org file, and I have lots of
repeaters too! I least I now have some time to fool around with this ...
Of course, I could probably just delete a lot of the older history, but
that seems more trouble than just archiving the whole thing - disk space
is cheap!
On 2/8/26 12:55 PM, George Pearson wrote:
Thanks! I had seen the threads you mentioned before, which are in the
neighborhood of what I want to do, but I'm very glad I revisited them
because this time I noticed a key strategy to use in my batch cleanup
of repeater dones - the use of symbol-function to temporarily suppress
org-cut-subtree. (I've also recently discovered the somewhat related
concept of "advice", which could come in handy at some point.)
Anyway, to do my batch cleanup of my existing repeater dones, I will just:
* modify my batch code that archived all my level 2 dones into now
archiving level 2 todos with repeaters, while using
symbol-function to stop the subtree from being deleted from my
live org file
* since the subtree remains in the live file, my current problem is
to figure out how to delete all the list items and paragraphs in
that subtree from below the properties drawer to the next
headline. (My dones are not in a LOGBOOK.) Hints on easy ways to
delete those items gratefully accepted!
* also need to add an ARCHIVE: entry into the properties drawer that
points to the headline in the archive file. This would be used in
any future live archiving of repeater dones.
With respect to the live archiving of repeater dones, I am still
trying to figure that out. However I need to do that before I run the
batch, because my current batch code is only intended to be run once,
so I would need the live archiving to be active right after running
the batch. (I'd rather not spend the effort making the batch code
re-runnable.)
Any advice appreciated!
On 2/7/26 4:00 PM, Ihor Radchenko wrote:
George Pearson<[email protected]> writes:
This is more a "would be nice" than any necessity. I accumulate an huge
number of done timestamps from my multiple repeaters, and these just
clutter up my master org file.
I know know of no way to clean them up besides copy/paste, though I'm
thinking of trying to write some elisp code for that. It may help
improve my skills.
The tougher job, which I know is beyond me, is archiving the
done-timestamps, as they occur, directly to the archive location, where
I figure the todo item and timestamps would look essentially the same as
they do now in my live org file.
Previous discussions:
-https://list.orgmode.org/orgmode/[email protected]/
-https://list.orgmode.org/orgmode/CAF4Fj9hS=L2yjkwQL=xzbyexr62bx-qtg0k-qndxj49wxhm...@mail.gmail.com/
