Delete and Restore
Deleting in Conspecta is reversible for 30 days, and even a permanent delete keeps the record of what happened. This page says exactly what goes, what stays, and how to get something back.
Trash
Trash is in your account menu, at the foot of the sidebar. Deleted work waits there for 30 days, then goes for good on its own.
Everything sits in one list with the newest deletion at the top, deleted projects included, so you don't have to remember which workspace something came from. Each row says what it was, when it went, and how long is left. Items also show who deleted them.
On any row you can restore the item or delete it permanently. Empty Trash, in the header, clears everything at once and asks you to confirm first.
What lands in Trash, and what doesn't
Anything that has its own page in the app goes to Trash when you delete it. Samples, notes, protocol runs, images, image and cytometry analysis, sequences, tables, figures, tasks, orders, stock, freezers, instruments and suppliers all behave that way. So does a whole project: you get the same 30 days to bring it back.
The pieces inside an item are the other half of the rule, and they go the moment you confirm. A comment, a row or a column in a table, a gate or a plot in a cytometry analysis, a panel in a figure, an attachment on an order, a subtask on its own, a saved template: none of these reach Trash, and restoring the item they belonged to does not bring them back.
Trashed items still use your storage. Nothing is freed until the item leaves the trash, either because you emptied it or because the 30 days ran out. If you're deleting to make room, empty the trash afterwards.
Who can restore what
Anyone who can edit the project can restore anything in its Trash, no matter who deleted it. Something you deleted yourself you can always restore, including private items only you could see. Deleting a row for good is stricter: that stays with the person who deleted it, the project lead, and the team's admins. A view-only member sees the reason instead of the buttons.
Freezers, instruments, and suppliers belong to the whole lab rather than to one project, so restoring or permanently deleting one needs membership of the team that owns it.
Restoring
Restore puts the item back where it was, as it was. Nothing about it is stripped while it sits in the trash, so its comments, sign-offs, links to other work, and history all come back with it.
Some items travel together, so restoring the one you deleted brings back the rest:
- A task brings back every subtask under it
- A reagent brings back its lots
- An image analysis or a cytometry analysis brings back its results table
- A figure brings back the pictures attached to it
If someone has already created a new results table in the same slot, the old one stays in the trash rather than colliding with it.
Because these travel with their parent, they don't get a row of their own in the trash. A picture you deleted by itself does, and it says what it was attached to, since the name it was saved under is rarely one you chose.
Permanent deletion
Delete Forever on a row, Empty Trash for the lot, or simply letting the 30 days run out all do the same thing.
What goes:
- The item itself and everything inside it. A data table's rows, an image collection's images, a group's membership, an order's attachments and comments, a protocol run's steps
- Its stored files
- Its links to other work, its comments, and anyone's stars, follows, and notifications about it
What stays:
| Kept | Why |
|---|---|
| Sign-offs on the item, including the copy of what was approved | A sign-off is a record of a person's decision, not just a label on the thing they decided about |
| Version history of a note or protocol | So a later reader can see what a page said at the time, which is the whole point of keeping versions |
| The activity trail, who did what and when | Including the deletion itself, and who did it |
This is deliberate. Deleting the thing you worked on should not quietly delete the evidence that you worked on it, or that a colleague reviewed it.
Tip: Deleting a cytometer also destroys the dye signatures measured on it, for every project that used the machine. Conspecta warns you on the row before you confirm.
Storage
Emptying the trash deletes the stored files behind an item. The storage figure in Settings → Storage updates for images, microscopy data, and cytometry files, which are the bulk of what a project holds. See Cache and storage for the full breakdown.
Deleting a project
A deleted project goes to the trash like anything else, appears in the same list, and can be restored for 30 days.
A project you have not put anything in yet is the exception. There is nothing to recover, so it is removed outright rather than parked in Trash.
Once it's permanently deleted, everything inside it goes with it: samples, notes, images, sequences, figures, tables, inventory, orders, and files. Freezers, instruments, and suppliers are the exception, because they belong to the team rather than the project and stay behind for the lab's other work.
The activity trail survives the project. It records who did what and when, and it's no longer readable from inside the app once the project is gone.
Deleting your account
Account deletion has its own 30-day grace period and its own set of rules, including what happens to teams you own and to work you leave in colleagues' projects. See Delete your account.
Records we're required to keep, such as billing history and controlled-substance logs, are kept without you in them. Your name and email are replaced with an anonymous placeholder everywhere they appear, so the record survives and you aren't identifiable in it.