Sometimes you want to change a lot of data, and you want to do it all at once. Here's how.

Warning: These are powerful tools, and a simple mistake could wipe your data. Be sure to make a database backup at Admin Panel -> Maintenance -> Backups first before performing mass alterations.

To perform mass alterations, go to Admin Panel -> Miscellaneous -> Advanced Options -> "Perform Bulk Data Alterations".

The first set of options lets you replace one value with another in a chosen field. Note this will only replace exact matches, it won't match if the value is only part of the content of the field for the record.

The second set of options lets you set a new value based on a condition in a different field. For example, you could set all topics which have more than 200 hits to be the topic type 'popular'.

For users with some knowledge of SQL, the "Run SQL on database" box on that same Advanced Options page provides the ultimate flexibility.