Trash
30-day recovery for deleted projects, content, templates, and Lore entries
Plotiar never deletes your work the moment you click delete. Deleted projects, content items, templates, and Lore entries move to Trash, where they sit for 30 days before automatic permanent deletion. You can restore any of them with one click during that window.
Overview
Trash is your safety net. When you delete a project, a document, a flowchart, a template, or a Lore entry, the item is marked deleted but kept in the database. Trash gathers all your deleted items in one place — projects, content, templates, and Lore — each with how long ago it was deleted and how many days remain before permanent removal.
Restoring an item returns it to its original location with all of its content intact. There is no "partial restore" — restore brings the entire item back.
What Goes to Trash
Anything you delete from the workspace lands in Trash, organised by type.
- •Projects — including all their content (when restored, the entire project comes back)
- •Content items — documents, flowcharts, ideaboards, taskboards, plot grids, corkboards, family trees, and folders
- •Templates — both project templates and content templates that you saved
- •Lore entries — individual entries deleted from the Lore page
The 30-Day Retention Window
Every item shows a countdown indicating how many days remain before permanent deletion. The countdown chip changes colour as the deadline approaches.
- •Green — more than 14 days remaining
- •Yellow — 8 to 14 days remaining
- •Red — 7 or fewer days remaining (act soon)
- •After 30 days, items are permanently deleted by an automated maintenance process and can no longer be restored
Restoring Items
Restoring is one click. Each item in Trash has a Restore button that returns it to its original location.
- •Restored projects come back with all their content, members, and settings
- •Restored content items come back into their original folder; restore the parent project first if you deleted that too
- •Restored templates appear back in your template library
- •Only the project owner can restore items belonging to that project
- •If a content item's parent project was also deleted, restore the project first — content restore refuses if the parent is still in Trash
Search & Filter
Trash includes a search box and a row of type filters so you can find a specific item even if you have a lot of recently deleted work.
- •Search by name across projects, content, and templates
- •Filter pills for projects, documents, flowcharts, ideaboards, taskboards, plot grids, corkboards, family trees, folders, and templates
- •Combine search with filters to narrow large lists
- •Clear filters at any time to see everything in Trash again
Permanent Deletion
After 30 days, items in Trash are permanently deleted. This is automatic — there is no manual "empty trash" action, and there is no way to recover items past the retention window.
- •Permanent deletion is irreversible — backups are not user-accessible
- •Plotiar does not currently support extending the retention window
- •If you want to keep a copy of something before permanent deletion, restore it then export it via Import & Export
