Archiving and Restoring Projects, Folders, and Documents

Last updated: September 30, 2026

Background

As your project portfolio grows, finished or inactive work can clutter your active workspace and make it harder to find what matters today. Archive lets you move projects, folders, and documents out of your active views without deleting them, so your workspace stays focused on current work. Archived items stay viewable, downloadable, and searchable from the Archive page, and can be restored at any time. Use Archive for completed projects, lost pursuits, or outdated documents you may need to reference later.

Things to Consider

  • Admins and Editors can archive and restore by default. Viewers cannot. The permission can also be turned on for custom roles, and Restore uses the same permission as Archive.

  • Archiving is not deleting. Your data, crunches, and prior results are kept. Deleting removes an item permanently; archiving can be undone with Restore.

  • Archiving cascades. Archiving a project archives every folder and document inside it. Archiving a folder archives everything inside that folder.

  • Archived material is read-only. You can still view, download, see version history, and use Project Assist chat (if your organization allows it). You cannot rename, mark up, comment, answer reviews or playbooks, add tasks, or apply workflows.

  • Playbooks, reviews, and workflows do not run on archived material. Archived projects cannot run any of them, and archived documents inside an active project are left out of project-level playbooks and reviews.

  • Nothing is re-run after archiving. Results that ran before an item was archived are kept and stay readable.

  • Chats are not archived with their documents. Existing chat threads about archived material become read-only.

  • Stage is not the same as Status. Setting a project's Stage to Closed or Lost does not archive it. Closed and Lost projects stay active and available to Project Assist. Each project has a separate Status field (Active or Archived).

  • You cannot archive a project or folder while documents inside it are still processing. Failed documents do not block archiving.

  • By default, Project Assist can chat with fully archived projects, but not with archived folders or documents inside an active project. An Org Admin can change this in Organization Settings.

Steps

Archive a project, folder, or document

  1. Locate the project, folder, or document you want to archive.

  2. Click the three-dot menu next to the item.

  3. Select Archive project, Archive folder, or Archive.

  4. Review the confirmation dialog and confirm.

    • The item, and everything inside it, is removed from your active views and moved to the Archive page.

    Note: If you archive only a folder or document inside a project, the project itself stays active. To view the archived items for that project, open the Archive page and select the project.

Find archived items

  1. In the side navigation, select Archive (located under Overview).

  2. Use search, sort, and filter to find what you need.

    • Archived folders and documents are grouped under their parent project.

    • The Archived items column shows how many items were covered by each archive action. For example, a folder with 3 documents shows 3 items. Documents show –.

  3. Click an item to open it in read-only mode.

Restore a document

  1. Navigate to the Archive page.

  2. Open the archived project that contains the document.

  3. Click Restore next to the document.

Note: Restoring an item inside an archived project also restores the parent project and any archived folders above it. Only those containers come back, not their other contents. The confirmation lists each container being restored.

Restore a project or folder

  1. Navigate to the Archive page.

  2. Click the three-dot menu next to the project or folder and select Restore.

  3. If some contents were archived separately before, choose what to bring back: a. Put it back the way it was (default): restores only what was archived by this archive action. Anything archived on purpose beforehand stays archived. b. Restore everything inside: restores all contents.

  4. Confirm the restore.

Tip! If nothing inside the project or folder was archived separately, you'll see a simple confirmation instead of these options.

Note: If Restore is greyed out, you don't have permission to restore every container that would be brought back. The subtext under the button names what's blocking it. Restore never moves items to a different project.

Chat with archived material in Project Assist (Org Admins)

  1. Go to Organization Settings → General → Chat with archived material.

  2. Set the toggles as needed: a. Archived projects: on by default. b. Archived folders and documents: off by default.

  3. Once Archived folders and documents is on, users can open Project Assist's Select a project or document picker and turn on Show archived items.

    • Archived items display an Archived chip.

Tip! If you don't have Organization Settings permission, the Manage link on the Archive page will direct you to contact your Org Admin.

FAQ

If I mark a project Closed, is it archived?

  • No. Closed and Lost are Stages. To archive a project, use Archive. We recommend also updating the project's Stage so your records stay accurate.

I archived a document but can't find it in Project Assist. Why?

  • The Archived folders and documents setting is off by default. An Org Admin can turn it on, and then you can turn on Show archived items in the picker.

What's the difference between archiving and deleting?

  • Archiving hides an item from active work and can be undone with Restore. Deleting removes it permanently.