# How deleting and restoring work

> What deleting a note does, restoring it, what remains after thirty days, purging, and removing tags or your account.

Page: https://docs.memex.tools/how-deletion-works

## Deleting a note

Deleting a note moves it to Deleted notes, where it stays restorable for thirty days at its original number and address. While it is there it is out of search, out of export and invisible to assistants; notes that linked to it show the link as leading nowhere.

Its tags are dropped from your vocabulary if nothing else carries them, and any drafts waiting on it are discarded: the dialog warns you, and a restore brings the note back, not the drafts. Its history is kept.

## Restoring

**Settings › Notes** › **Open deleted notes** › **Restore** puts the note back with its tags, status, authorship and history; links to it resolve again.

## After thirty days

The text is purged and a tombstone remains: the title, the reason, the dates and who deleted it. A tombstone cannot be restored, and it stops a later import from silently bringing the note back.

**Purge now** also clears the remaining content fields and related Activity narratives, including shared run narratives. Audit identities, actions and times remain. The tombstone title stays to prevent accidental re-import. Use it for a note that must truly be gone, such as one that carried a credential.

## Assistants cannot delete

A delete from any connection, curator included, is a proposal in your inbox.

## Tags

Tags removed or merged from **Settings › Notes** are gone from the notes at once, with no thirty-day limbo; the notes themselves are untouched.

## Your account

Your account can be deleted from **Settings › Account**, immediately and completely. There is no recovery. Export first. See [Delete your account](https://docs.memex.tools/delete-account).

## Related

- [Delete and restore notes](https://docs.memex.tools/delete-and-restore): Delete a note, bring it back within thirty days, and what happens after that.
- [Delete your account](https://docs.memex.tools/delete-account): Export your notes, then delete your account for good.
- [How the review gate works](https://docs.memex.tools/review-gate): What happens to new notes, edits, reports, deletes and merges an assistant files, and the one role that skips part of it.