Topic: Best way to bulk-remove cards?

I see there was one post from several years ago on this idea, but haven't seen anything else since:

When I'm bulk-adding cards to my inventory/tradelist on Deckbox, the "MTG Database > Editions" interface is quite nice (since I sort my trade bins by set, and then by collector number). But what is the most efficient way to bulk-remove cards? For the situation where I make a big trade on a different site, and need to remove them from my tradelist on Deckbox, the best interface I've found for that at the moment is the "MTG Collection > Tradelist" interface, using the "Add Cards" interface to search for the card one-by-one and removing one card from the list.

But that can be tedious since I need to tick down the "Inventory" and the "for trade" number. And there's no UI element for "delete this row" if there's only one card of that type (you have to type in zeroes and apply it). For adding cards there's a bulk text box import option, or when making a deck there's the option to both add them to the deck and to your inventory, which is a good way to spot check a batch of cards coming in (did I accurately import 28 cards, or did I mess up and only import 27, skipping some card?).

How do you do bulk removals from your inventory/tradelist through the Deckbox UI?

Re: Best way to bulk-remove cards?

On the Tradelist, you can check multiple rows of cards. Then 'Card Actions > Remove Selected' removes those rows from the Tradelist but NOT your inventory.

In your Inventory, you can sort to view cards in your Tradelist by clicking the Tradelist count icon. You can also narrow your search down further by expanding the Sort and Filter panel. In your Inventory, you can check multiple rows. 'Card Actions > Remove Selected' removes those rows from the Tradelist AND your inventory. I believe this is the functionality you're looking for, yeah?

Re: Best way to bulk-remove cards?

zga wrote:

In your Inventory, you can check multiple rows. 'Card Actions > Remove Selected' removes those rows from the Tradelist AND your inventory. I believe this is the functionality you're looking for, yeah?

That removes ALL copies of that card, which is not often what I am needing. That can be useful if you no longer have any of the card left, but if you had three copies and you only traded away one, that's not the action you'd need.

Re: Best way to bulk-remove cards?

MidnightLightning wrote:
zga wrote:

In your Inventory, you can check multiple rows. 'Card Actions > Remove Selected' removes those rows from the Tradelist AND your inventory. I believe this is the functionality you're looking for, yeah?

That removes ALL copies of that card, which is not often what I am needing. That can be useful if you no longer have any of the card left, but if you had three copies and you only traded away one, that's not the action you'd need.

In that case removing X from tradelist and X from inventory at the same time is the best way.

I believe trades on the deckbox platform are automatically adjusted in your inventory, but it obviously can't account for other sites.

Re: Best way to bulk-remove cards?

I 100% agree that this should be a feature! A while back, I went through my very large inventory and got rid of a whole bunch of cards, doing bulk sales and the like. I had to do all of my inventory manipulations in an exported CSV rather than natively on Deckbox. The ability to enter in a list of cards, all from a single set / condition / language (just like the bulk add), and choose to remove instead of add, would be amazing.

That said, I think the nuances of how this would work would make it hard to implement. For instance, I own a signed foil Intet, the Dreamer, a signed non-foil Intet, and an unsigned non-foil Intet (all 3 from Planar Chaos). If I have 1 Intet in my list of cards to remove, how will Deckbox know which of the 3 to tick down? What if I decide to get rid of all signed cards and list 2 Intets? How will I designate that they are the signed ones?

One method would be using a system of flags like on TappedOut. On T/O, you can use *F* to designate that a card is foil and *S* for signed. You can also specify set codes in parentheses. Using a system like this, I could add the following to my bulk-remove list:

1 Intet, the Dreamer *F* *S*
1 Intet, the Dreamer *S*

...which would keep my unsigned, non-foil version in my inventory.

Another method (which you could and probably should use alongside the above) would be generating a list of unmatched cards that the user has to go through and match to ones in inventory. In other words, if Deckbox can't feel 100% positive that I meant a certain card, it'll ask. So in the above example, if I list 1 Intet, the Dreamer *F* *S* then it WON'T ask me, because there can't be any confusion. But if I list 1 Intet, the Dreamer *S*, it'll ask if I meant the foil or non-foil signed copy.

Despite these complications, I think that having SOME version of a mass-remove, even if it's not completely robust, would be a good feature.

=======================

For those who aren't faint of heart and who have a very large list of cards to remove, here's what I did:

  1. I exported my old inventory (which still included the sold cards in its counts) to a CSV file.

  2. As I boxed up / shipped / sold cards, I added them to a dummy Deckbox account.

  3. I exported the dummy account's inventory to CSV.

  4. In Excel, I pasted the contents of the dummy CSV into the first CSV, and created a "named range" for all those removed cards.

  5. I used a combination of CONCAT and VLOOKUP to see if a card in my original inventory had a corresponding row in the Removed named range.

  6. If it did, the formula returned the Count of the removed cards. If not, it returned 0.

  7. In a new column, I subtracted the amounts from Step 6 from the original Counts, which left me with my remaining quantity.

  8. I copy-pasted the values from the Step 7 column into the original Count column, deleted the named range, and deleted the extra columns.

  9. Saved it and imported via that CSV.

I know that probably sounds way overly complicated, but once you know what you're doing with the formulas, it's pretty easy. And when you're dealing with a thousand+ cards at a time, BOY does it sure save a ton of time in the long run! The longest step, honestly, is Step 2 -- creating an inventory of the removed cards.

If anyone would like more details on how to do Steps 4-8, I'd be glad to write a more thorough guide (or upload an example Excel file for those who "learn with their hands"). For people who are good with Excel, hopefully that'll be enough info to help out.  smile

Re: Best way to bulk-remove cards?

With the finished CSV, would you reimport it to deckbox somehow or did you just maintain an inventory off of deckbox after that?

Re: Best way to bulk-remove cards?

zga wrote:

With the finished CSV, would you reimport it to deckbox somehow or did you just maintain an inventory off of deckbox after that?

Both!

Updating your online inventory is the easiest of all the steps. From your Inventory, you first have to go to Tools > Remove Everything before importing the new CSV (because a CSV import doesn't replace; it adds to the existing cards). Then go to Add Cards > From CSV File and choose the newly edited CSV. Your online Deckbox inventory will now be up-to-date!

  • NOTE: Keep a copy of the original CSV you export, before editing it to remove cards! That way, if you screw up in the editing process in any way, you always have a "system restore" point to fall back on.

In addition to keeping your online inventory up-to-date, I also always recommend keeping a CSV backup of your inventory stored off-site, just in case something ever happens to your data on Deckbox.

Last edited by meldon44 (2019-12-05 18:48:02)

Re: Best way to bulk-remove cards?

Just saw this last post. Guess it answers all my questions:o