Trash & restoring deleted pages
Deleting a page from the sidebar doesn’t erase it — it moves to Trash, where it sits for 30 days before being permanently removed. This page covers what actually happens on delete, how to get a page back, and what “permanently” really means.
Trash lives at
/trash— there’s a link in the sidebar near your document list. It shows every one of your own deleted pages across all your sites, not just the one you were last viewing.Deleting a page
Right-click (or use the “⋯” menu on) a page in the sidebar and choose Delete. A confirmation toast appears before anything happens — deletion is not instant and not silent.
If the page had sub-pages nested under it, they’re deleted along with it and restored along with it too — the whole branch moves together, not just the one page you clicked.
What deletion actually does
| Effect | |
|---|---|
| Soft delete | The page is flagged deleted and stamped with a deletion date. Nothing is removed from the database yet. |
| If it was published | A deleted page stops being publicly reachable immediately — its public URL 404s (or shows the private-page fallback) even though the content still exists internally, waiting in Trash. |
| If it’s the root of a site | The site’s subdomain/custom domain isn’t released or reassigned by a delete — restoring the page brings the same site back at the same address. |
Restoring a page
Trash → Restore
Find the page in the list at
/trash — each row shows the title, how long ago it was deleted, and how many days remain before permanent deletion — and click Restore.After restoring
A toast confirms the restore with a direct "Open" link. The page reappears in the sidebar in its previous location (or under its previous parent, if it had one).
Restoring brings the page back exactly as it was, including its old
isPublic state — if it was published before deletion, it goes right back to being publicly reachable the moment you restore it, with no extra confirmation step.Permanent deletion
Trash has its own 30-day clock, separate from anything else in the app. You don’t have to do anything for a page to eventually disappear for good — but you can also force it:
Trash → Delete forever
A second confirmation appears — "This cannot be undone — it will not go through Trash again." There is no way to recover a page after this.
The 30-day countdown
Each row shows "N days left before permanent deletion." Once that hits zero, the page is purged automatically — you don't need to check back or manually clear anything.
The 30-day window is measured from when the page was deleted, not from when you last looked at Trash. Leaving a page in Trash for months without opening the page does not reset the clock or extend the window.
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | What it means |
|---|---|
| A page I deleted isn’t in Trash | Trash only shows pages you deleted yourself, tied to your account — check you’re looking at the right account if you collaborate on shared documents. |
| Deleted a parent page, its children are gone from the sidebar too | Expected — delete cascades to the whole subtree. Restoring the parent from Trash brings the children back with it, you don’t need to find them separately. |
| Restored a page but its public URL still 404s | The page itself came back, but if it was unpublished before deletion (or you’re not sure), check its publish toggle — restore brings back the page’s prior state, it doesn’t force it public. |
| Says "deleted a while ago" instead of a specific number of days | A rare case for pages deleted before the deletion-date tracking existed — harmless, the page still restores or deletes-forever normally. |