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Delete and restore |
Sometimes your questions, dashboards, models, or collections outlive their usefulness. You can send outdated items to Trash.
Items in Trash won't show up in search (unless you use advanced search filters), and you won't be able to use them to create new questions and dashboards.
Moving items to Trash isn't permanent; you'll be able to restore them to their original parent collection, or move them to another collection. But if you'd like to delete items permanently, you can do that too.
Deleting an item will affect any dashboards, subscriptions, or SQL questions that depend on that item, so be careful!
You can find Trash at the bottom of the left navigation sidebar below all the collections:
You can think of Trash as a special type of collection. In Trash, you can see deleted items from the collections that you have Curate permissions on. You can order deleted items by type (questions, dashboards, etc), time it was deleted, and who deleted it.
You;'ll be able to see the contents of deleted dashboards, questions, and models in Trash, but you won't be able to modify them.
To find items in Trash, you can use advanced search with a "Search items in trash" toggle.
To move an item (question, dashboard, model, or collection) to Trash:
- Go to the question you want to delete;
- Click on the three dots menu;
- Select "Move to trash".
When a collection is moved to the trash, Metabase moves all items in the collection to the trash as well.
You'll still be able to see the contents of the items in Trash, but you won't be able to modify them or use them as a source for other questions.
If you need to delete multiple items from the same collection, you can delete them in bulk:
- Go to the collection containing items you want to delete;
- Click the checkboxes next to the items to select them;
- Select "Move to trash"
To restore an item:
- Go to Trash;
- Find the item you'd like to delete. You can sort deleted items to make it easier to find the item, or search for your question in Trash;
- Click on the checkbox next to the item to select it;
- Select "Restore".
Restoring a collection will also restore all the items from that collection.
If the item's original parent collection has been deleted as well, you won't see an option to Restore. You'll still be able to move the it from Trash to a different collection.
To move older, unused items in bulk to the trash, check out cleaning up collections.
Deleting or restoring an item will affect other items that depend on that item.
What happens to related items when you delete a question?
| Related item | In Trash | Permanently deleted | Restored |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dashboard | Card removed | Card removed | Card restored |
| Question based on deleted question | Works normally | Breaks with Card not found error |
Works normally |
| Alerts | Removed | Removed | Not restored |
What happens to related items when you delete a dashboard?
| Related item | In Trash | Permanently deleted | Restored |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subscriptions | Deactivated | Deactivated | Restored |
| Custom homepage | Revert to default homepage | Revert to default homepage | Restored |
What happens to related items when you delete a model?
| Related item | In Trash | Permanently deleted | Restored |
|---|---|---|---|
| Question based on deleted question | Works normally | Breaks with Card not found error |
Reactivated |
| Dashboard | Card removed | Card removed | Card restored |
| Action | Works normally | Deleted | Works normally |
What happens to related items when you delete a collection?
| Related item | In Trash | Permanently deleted | Restored |
|---|---|---|---|
| All items and subcollections in the collection | In Trash | Permanently deleted | Restored |
Moving an item to Trash doesn't delete the item completely: you'll be able to restore the item from the Trash.
To permanently delete an item:
- Go to Trash;
- Find the item you'd like to delete;
- Click on the checkbox next to the collection to select it;
- Select "Permanently delete". If you click this button, you won't be able to recover the item. It'll be lost to the void.
Events and timelines can be archived and unarchived. See Archiving Events and timelines.
You won't see archived Events and Timelines in Trash. To see archived events and timelines, you need to access them from the collection's page.
SQL snippets can be archived and unarchived. See Archiving SQL snippets.
You won't see archived SQL snippets in Trash. To see archived SQL Snippets, you need to access them from the Snippet menu.
Segments can be retired. See Retiring Segments.
You won't see retired Segments in Trash.
See Deleting a subscription and Deleting alerts.
See Deleting databases.