Bulk-Delete your Mapillary Sequences

Mapillary’s browser application does not offer a way to delete multiple sequences at once. Instead, each one must be deleted individually. Once selected, this requires several more clicks—with rather slow response times—before you can move on to the next sequence. With this Python script, you simply need to specify a time range within which all sequences are to be deleted.

The project was vibe coded with Claude.

Setup

Before the MapillarySequenceCleaner can be used, its dependencies must be installed in the project directory once:

cd /path/to/MapillarySequenceCleaner
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install python-dateutil tzlocal

Starting MapillarySequenceCleaner

MapillarySequenceCleaner runs inside a Python virtual environment (.venv). The environment must be activated once per terminal session before any python3 sequences.py ... command will work:

cd /path/to/MapillarySequenceCleaner
source .venv/bin/activate

The activation applies only to the current terminal session. Open a new terminal window and you need to run source … activate again.

Configuration

Create config.json in the project root (excluded from git):

{
  "doc_id": "23918271204504446",
  "user_id": "your_numeric_user_id",
  "creator_username": "your Mapillary username",
  "app_token": "MLY|4223665974375089|d62822dd792b6a823d0794ef26450398",
  "user_token": "MLY|...",
  "auth_header": "OAuth ..."
}

All these keys can also be used on the command line, in which case they override the values in config.json.

Determining the configuration settings

1. Open www.mapillary.com in Chrome
2. Open the Developer Tools
3. Go to the Network tab
4. Load the map by clicking "Explore the map"
5. Filter by doc_id

You will then see this request:

The payload contains doc_id, variables {id=[user_id], access_token (app_token). The user_name is displayed in the top-left corner.

auth_header: The Authorization header value required for deletion. Filter for fetch__user in the Developer Tools:

user_token: See Mapillary Client access token (user_token).

sequences.py

List sequences

python3 sequences.py list
python3 sequences.py list --captured_from "2024-12-01" --captured_to "2024-12-31"
python3 sequences.py list --captured_at "Dec 2, 2024 2:58 PM"

Output:

sequence                   images   first captured (UTC)         last captured (UTC)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PA3dpCEZ2gzySibQo6jXnT         44   2024-12-02 13:03:00 UTC      2024-12-02 13:09:29 UTC
...

Sequences found: 34

Delete sequences

# Dry run first — always recommended
python3 sequences.py delete --dry-run --captured_from "2024-12-01" --captured_to "2024-12-02"

# Delete with confirmation prompt
python3 sequences.py delete --captured_from "2024-12-01" --captured_to "2024-12-02"

# Target a single sequence by its browser timestamp
python3 sequences.py delete --captured_at "Dec 2, 2024 2:58 PM"

# Skip confirmation (for scripting)
python3 sequences.py delete --captured_from "2024-12-01" --captured_to "2024-12-02" --force

Date formats

All date arguments accept:

• ISO format (interpreted as UTC): 2024-12-02, 2024-12-02T13:58:00, 2024-12-02 13:58:00
• Browser display format (interpreted as local time with DST): Oct 26, 2024 11:42 AM
  

Time window options

Option	Behaviour
--captured_at DATETIME	Sets a 1-minute window around the given timestamp. Use when targeting a single sequence by copying its timestamp from the Mapillary browser.
--captured_from + --captured_to	Explicit window. Both must be provided together. Sequences that started before captured_from are flagged and require individual confirmation.
(none)	All sequences.

Deletion behaviour

• Sequences with images in the time window are listed and confirmed before deletion.
• Sequences whose first image falls outside the window (boundary sequences caused by the browser's minute-precision display) are shown with a note and require explicit individual confirmation.
• --dry-run shows what would be deleted without making any changes.
• --force skips all confirmation prompts.
• --delay SECONDS adds an extra pause between deletion requests (default: 10). Deleting sequences in a short space of time may result in the thumbnails not being displayed for a while. The default value didn't cause any issues with my deletions, whereas 0 definitely does. It might be possible to set it slightly lower. But everyone can test that for themselves. See also Rate Limiting

Logging

All runs are logged to mapillary.log (excluded from git), including timings, retry events, and deletion records.