Deleting and restoring

Nothing you delete leaves immediately. Deleted work is kept for thirty days before it is removed for good.

Deleting a record

Deleting a record — a chapter, a character, a location — hides it everywhere and puts it in the archive. It stops appearing in lists, in search, in relations and on the timeline, and the project behaves as though it is gone.

It is not gone. For thirty days it sits in the archive module with the date it was deleted, and one button puts it back exactly where it was, relations included.

Why thirty days

Long enough to cover the realistic case — you deleted the wrong thing and noticed within a week — and short enough that a project's storage is not mostly regret. After the window the cleanup removes the record for good, and that removal is final.

What the archive holds

Records. It does not hold:

• Images, which are deleted immediately, because a file is not a record.
• Text you edited. The archive is for things you deleted, not for changes you made. Undo inside the editor is what covers a paragraph you regret.
• Projects, which work differently, below.

Deleting a project

You can delete a project you created from its settings in the builder, from a story's page in the simplified builder, or from Projects in your account settings, which lists everything you own. It asks for two things:

1. Its name, typed exactly, so the wrong one cannot be deleted by accident.
2. A code that proves it is really you. With two-factor authentication on, enter the code from your authenticator app. Without it, you get a six-digit code by email. It works once, only for that project, and only for fifteen minutes.

Nothing is sent until the name matches, so opening the dialog by mistake costs nothing.

Deleting a project takes everything inside it — the chapters, the records, the maps and the conversation — so nothing is left behind to tidy up afterwards.

If you are a member of a project rather than the person who created it, asking to delete it only takes you out of it. It stays for everyone else.

Getting a project back

A deleted project cannot be restored from the app. For thirty days, contact support: they can bring it back whole — the chapters, the records, the maps and the conversation. After thirty days it is erased with everything inside it, and that cannot be undone.

If you want a copy of a project before you delete it, take a backup first. A backup is a file you hold, which is a stronger guarantee than a window that expires.

Closing an account

Closing an account is a separate and heavier act than deleting a project, and it is covered in account and security. Work in projects you do not own stays with those projects.