Trash and Document Recovery

When you delete documents or folders in Boardwise, they are moved to the trash rather than being immediately removed. This gives you a safety net to recover accidentally deleted items before they are permanently removed.

How Soft Delete Works

Deleting a document or folder does not remove it right away. Instead:

1. The item is marked as "trashed" with a timestamp
2. It no longer appears in your document library or meeting materials
3. It remains recoverable from the trash until permanent deletion occurs
4. Other users can no longer access the trashed item

This approach protects against accidental deletions while ensuring that items are eventually cleaned up according to your retention policies.

Finding Deleted Documents

To view items that have been deleted:

1. Go to your organization's main menu
2. Select Trash
3. You will see a list of all deleted documents and folders

The trash view shows:

• Name - The document or folder name at the time it was deleted
• Date - When the item was moved to trash

Items are sorted with the most recently deleted items at the top.

Restoring Documents from Trash

To restore a deleted document or folder:

1. Navigate to Trash
2. Find the item you want to restore
3. Click the Restore button next to the item

The item will be returned to its original location. If the item was a document attached to a meeting or stored in a folder, it will reappear in that location.

When a Folder's Name Has Been Reused

A folder in the trash does not hold on to its name, so you can create a new folder with the same name in the same place. If you later restore the original, Boardwise will not restore it over the new one. You will see a message such as "A folder named Minutes already exists in 2026. Rename that folder, then restore this one." Nothing is restored until the names differ: rename the new folder, then click Restore again.

Restoring a folder is all or nothing. Either the folder comes back with everything that was deleted with it, or it all stays in the trash and you are told why.

If a document's original folder was also deleted, you may need to restore the folder first, or the document may be restored to a default location.

Permanent Deletion

Items in the trash are not retained indefinitely. Permanent deletion occurs based on your organization's retention policies.

When Permanent Deletion Happens

Boardwise runs a scheduled job that permanently deletes items when their retention period expires. This applies to:

• Documents whose retention date has passed
• Meetings that have reached their retention limit

Items in the trash follow the same retention schedule as active items. Moving something to trash does not extend or reset its retention period.

What Permanent Deletion Removes

When a document is permanently deleted:

• The document record is removed from the database
• The file is removed from storage, along with every previous version of it
• All annotations made on the document are deleted
• Document view history is removed
• Links to agenda items are removed

Permanent deletions are logged in the activity audit trail for compliance purposes.

Retention Policies

Retention policies determine how long content is kept before automatic permanent deletion.

Policy Hierarchy

Retention settings are inherited in this order:

1. Document or meeting level - Specific settings on individual items take highest priority
2. Folder or meeting level - Items can inherit from their container
3. Organization level - The default retention period for all content

Viewing Retention Information

When viewing a document, you can see:

• When the document is scheduled for permanent deletion
• Where the retention setting originates (document, folder, or organization level)
• Whether the document is marked for indefinite retention

Indefinite Retention

Some documents may need to be kept permanently. Items marked for indefinite retention:

• Will never be automatically deleted
• Remain recoverable from trash indefinitely
• Can still be manually deleted by administrators

For more information on configuring retention policies, contact your organization administrator.

Meeting-Linked Documents

Documents attached to meetings have special considerations when deleted.

Removing from Agenda Items

When you delete a document that is linked to one or more agenda items:

• The document moves to trash
• Links to agenda items are preserved while the document is in trash
• If restored, the document will reappear on its linked agenda items

Deleting Meeting Documents

Documents uploaded to a meeting belong to that meeting. If the meeting itself is permanently deleted due to retention policies:

• All documents attached to that meeting are also permanently deleted
• This includes documents that were linked to agenda items
• Action items from the meeting are preserved but lose their meeting reference

Restoring Meeting Documents

When you restore a meeting document from trash:

• It returns to its original meeting
• Agenda item links are restored
• Attendees with meeting access can view the document again

Best Practices

Before Deleting

• Verify you are deleting the correct item, especially for documents with similar names
• Consider whether the document should be archived in a folder instead of deleted
• Check if other people may still need access to the document

Managing the Trash

• Review the trash periodically to ensure nothing was deleted by mistake
• Restore items promptly if needed, before retention policies trigger permanent deletion
• Understand your organization's retention settings to know how long items remain recoverable

For Administrators

• Configure appropriate retention periods that balance storage management with recovery needs
• Use indefinite retention for legally required documents
• Review the activity audit trail to track permanent deletions for compliance purposes

Related Articles

• Working with Documents
• Activity and Audit Trails
• Security and Privacy