Daily

Clear out cards labelled for removal

Each night cards with your removal label are archived, and you get a count by email.

Runs: Daily
Apps: Trello
AI: Not needed
Access: read+write

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every night at 11pm, archive the cards on my Projects board labelled 'Mark for Deletion' and email me how many were archived.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

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Why use it

Why teams use this automation

Trello boards collect cards that nobody wants anymore: duplicates, expired offers, test cards and ideas that were rejected. People tag them with a label such as Delete or Obsolete, intending to clear them later, and later never comes. The board stays cluttered, and new teammates cannot tell which cards are real.

Every day, this goes through the cards on a board, finds the ones carrying the label you pick, removes them and emails you how many were cleared. You can set it to archive instead of delete, which is the safer choice for most teams.

It suits boards where several people triage cards and want a simple way to mark one as finished with. The label becomes a one-click way to say this card is finished with, and the board takes care of the rest.

What you get out of it

Labeling becomes the whole job
Marking a card is a two-second action. Because removal happens by itself, people actually use the label, instead of leaving junk on the board because deleting seems like extra work.
The board reflects real work
Test cards, duplicates and rejected ideas disappear within a day. A clean board makes it clear to newcomers and stakeholders what is current without a tour of what to ignore.
Archive option for safety
Choosing archive over delete lets you recover a card marked by mistake. That removes the main worry about automated cleanup and makes people comfortable applying the label. Mistakes can be undone from the archive.
A count for accountability
The email says how many cards were cleared each day. A sudden spike signals a bulk mislabel, and a steady trickle confirms the process is working as intended. Either pattern tells you something useful about how the board is used.
Consistent rules across boards
The same label and schedule can be applied to several boards, so every team follows one convention rather than inventing their own housekeeping habits. That keeps the housekeeping rule simple to explain to new teammates and avoids drift between teams over time.

How it works

What happens, step by step

Every day, ClickRuntime looks through the cards on your Trello board.
It picks out the cards that carry your removal label.
Those cards are archived (or deleted, if you choose), so the board stays tidy.
You get an email with the number of cards removed and their names.

Before it runs live

Connect Trello

What you get

RunsDaily

Clear out cards labelled for removaltoday, 9:00Succeeded

Email · Trello cleanupArchived 4 cards Old Q2 kickoff notes · Duplicate: logo refresh · Acme draft v1 · Test card

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.

Your own rules
Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.
Any number of apps
One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.
AI where it helps
Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.
On a schedule or on each event
Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

Run it at a different time, more or less often, or only on weekdays
Add an AI step, for example to summarize, sort or draft a reply
Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
Combine it with other Trello steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.

clean_up_cards_with_a_label.pyexample

from clickruntime import on_trigger, http, credentials, notify

BOARD_ID = "PROJECTS_BOARD_ID"

def trello(method, path, **params):
    params.update(key=credentials.secret("TRELLO_API_KEY"), token=credentials.secret("TRELLO_TOKEN"))
    r = http.request(method, f"https://api.trello.com/1{path}", params=params)
    r.raise_for_status()
    return r.json()

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    cards = trello("GET", f"/boards/{BOARD_ID}/cards", fields="name,labels")
    marked = [c for c in cards if any(l["name"] == "Mark for Deletion" for l in c["labels"])]
    for c in marked:
        trello("PUT", f"/cards/{c['id']}", closed="true")
    notify.email_me(f"Archived {len(marked)} cards", "\n".join(c["name"] for c in marked) or "Nothing marked tonight.")
    return {"archived": len(marked)}

FAQ

Common questions

Should I choose delete or archive?

Archive is recommended. Archived cards can be restored from Trello's archive, while deleted cards are gone for good. Choose delete only for cards that never contain anything you might need, like leftover test entries. Archive keeps everything.

Does it remove cards that have other labels too?

It removes any card that carries the cleanup label, even if the card has other labels as well. If you want to protect cards with a particular second label, such as Keep, ask for an exception rule.

Can a teammate remove the label before the daily run?

Yes. The label is checked at run time, so if someone takes it off a card before the next run, the card stays. That gives you a natural window to rescue a card marked by mistake.

What permissions does it need?

read+write. Nothing else in your accounts is used.

Does it need AI?

No. It runs without AI, so it doesn't use your plan's AI allowance.

How many runs does it use?

One run each time it runs (daily). Checks that find nothing to do and stop right away aren't counted.

Can I change how it works?

Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

On a schedule