Deleting

Deleting a document is immediate for readers and reversible for a week on request.

How to delete

• From an agent: delete_doc(doc_id). The response is {"doc_id": ..., "deleted": true, "purge_at": ...}.
• From the app: select the document and use Delete in the inspector, or tick several documents and use Delete in the selection bar.
• REST: DELETE /api/docs/{id}.

Only the owner of a document can delete it. A colleague who holds edit access to it can change its content but gets a 403 (only the document owner can delete it) on delete; anyone else gets a 404, so the document's existence is not confirmed.

What happens

1. The document is marked deleted and given a purge_at seven days out.
2. The link stops working at once. Visitors see the same neutral "This link isn't available" page that is used for expired and nonexistent documents, so nothing about the document is disclosed.
3. The document disappears from the file browser, for you and for anyone it was listed or shared with, from list_docs and from search. Links it made to other documents leave the backlink index.
4. Its storage still counts until purge.
5. A daily purge job removes every file of every version from object storage and deletes the metadata rows once purge_at has passed. Nightly database backups roll off 14 days after that.
6. The deletion is recorded in the workspace's audit log on Business and above.

Slugs are 128-bit random values and are never reused, so a deleted link can never start pointing at something else.

Bulk actions in the app

In Library, tick the checkbox on a tile or row to select it. Only your own documents can be selected; the checkbox on a document owned by someone else is disabled and names the owner. With one or more documents selected, a bar appears with:

• Move to…: pick a folder for all of them. Dragging a selected tile onto a folder moves the whole selection too.
• Expiry…: set the retention on each, including keep forever.
• Tags…: add or remove tags on each.
• Add as a source to an agent…: link each to an agent as a source.
• List for team: set listing: team on each.
• Delete: after a confirmation, soft-delete each.
• Clear: drop the selection.

Each action is applied document by document and the result reports how many succeeded. Documents under legal hold are skipped with no change.

Legal hold

On Enterprise, a document under legal hold cannot be deleted or purged, and does not expire. delete_doc and DELETE /api/docs/{id} answer 423 with this document is under legal hold and cannot be deleted; an admin must release the hold first. A hold set on an already soft-deleted document stops its purge. Releasing the hold (the owner, or a workspace owner or admin) makes the document deletable again.

Undoing a delete

There is no self-serve restore of a deleted document. If you deleted something by mistake, email hello@fermium.app with the link or doc_id within the seven days. After purge the content is gone.

Deleting a single file

To remove one file from a document without deleting the document, use delete_file or DELETE /api/docs/{id}/files?path=.... See Files and attachments.

Deleting everything

Select all documents in a view and use Delete in the selection bar, or ask an agent to list_docs and delete_doc in a loop. Deleting your account soft-deletes every document you own in one step; see Deleting your account.