Delete & Restore Contacts

What you'll learn

Common Use Cases

Once you understand how delete and restore work, here's what you can handle with confidence.

🗑️

Undo An Accidental Delete

Someone on your team deletes the wrong contact. Instead of panicking, you know exactly where to find it and bring it back.

📈

Recover A Bulk Cleanup Mistake

You were cleaning up your database, selected too many contacts, and deleted a batch by accident. Bulk restores fix that in one step.

🔗

Bring Back A Merged Contact

Merging two contacts isn't the same as deleting one, but it still shows up in your restore list if you ever need to separate them again.

🔍

Track What Changed And Who Did It

Your Audit Log shows every deletion and restoration in the account, including the date, time, and who took the action.

Key definitions

Terms worth knowing

Removing a contact from your account. Deleting a contact also removes its corresponding conversations, notes, opportunities, tasks, and manual actions, so it isn't just the contact record that disappears.

Bringing a deleted contact back. Restoring a contact also restores everything tied to it, including its conversations, notes, opportunities, tasks, and manual actions.

The list you land on after selecting Restore from the three dot menu. It shows every contact that's been deleted or merged and is still within its recovery window.

A contact that was combined into another one, not physically deleted. Merged contacts still show up in your Restore Contacts list in case you ever need to bring one back.

Any action, like a delete or restore, applied to more than one contact at the same time. Bulk actions run in the background and can be tracked, viewed, and even undone from the Bulk Actions screen.

A running record in Settings that shows every contact that's been deleted, restored, or updated, along with who did it and when.

"Even though we typed delete, we still didn't mean to delete it, and we can now restore it."

How it works

Deleting And Restoring Contacts, Step By Step

Delete from the contact record

Open a contact and select it, then hit the delete button, either from the contact details or the little trash can icon on the record. You'll be told that deleting the contact also removes its conversations, notes, opportunities, tasks, and manual actions, and that you have 60 days to restore it. Type the word "delete" to confirm, and the contact is removed from your list right away.

Find it under Smart List, then Restore

Go to your Smart List and select All, then click the three dots. You'll see Export, Restore, Manage Smart List, Manage Duplicates, and Settings. Choose Restore to open your Restore Contacts list. Check the box next to the contact you want back, select Restore, and confirm. The contact returns along with its conversations, notes, opportunities, tasks, and manual actions.

Select multiple contacts, then delete

Check the box next to each contact you want to remove, or select several at once, then choose Delete. You'll need to type the word "delete" to confirm, and every contact you selected is removed. This is considered a bulk action, and you can watch its progress as it processes.

Undo the whole batch, or just one

Open the bulk action's progress to see the date, what was deleted, and its completion status. From there you can view the details or restore the entire action with one click. You can also go back to Smart List, All, three dots, Restore, and pick out just the one contact you meant to keep, leaving the rest deleted.

Merged contacts live in the same list

A merged contact isn't the same as a deleted one; it just means one contact was combined into another. Any time you merge or delete a contact, it shows up in the same Restore Contacts list, so if you ever need to bring back a contact you merged, you can select it and restore it the same way.

Review deletions and restores in Settings

Go to Settings and select Audit Logs to see a full history of every contact that was deleted, restored, or updated, plus who took the action and the exact date and time. Select the info icon on any entry for more detail. If you manage contacts for a team, checking this weekly is a great habit for keeping an eye on everything happening in the account.

Tips

Worth remembering

You have 60 days, about two months, from the moment of deletion to restore a contact. After that window closes, it's gone for good.
Deleting or restoring a contact always brings its conversations, notes, opportunities, tasks, and manual actions along with it, in either direction.
Both single and bulk deletes require you to type the word "delete" to confirm, so an accidental click alone can't remove a contact.
Merged contacts show up in the same Restore Contacts list as deleted ones. Merging isn't deleting, but it's still reversible from the same place.
Get comfortable with Smart List, All, the three dots, and Restore. That path is your go-to for recovering anything, whether it was one contact or a whole batch.

Check yourself

Quick Knowledge Check

Four quick questions on this lesson. One attempt each, and the answer is revealed either way.

0 of 4 answered

How long do you have to restore a deleted contact?

What word do you have to type to confirm a delete?

Where do you go to restore a deleted contact?

What also gets removed when you delete a contact?

Apply it

Try this with your favorite AI

🗑️Build my contact recovery routine

You are helping me build a simple recovery routine for accidentally deleted contacts in my software. Here is my situation: - How many people on my team can delete contacts: [describe] - How often I clean up or bulk-delete contacts in my database: [describe] - What has happened before when a contact was deleted by mistake: [describe, or say "nothing yet"] Based on that, write me a short step by step routine I can follow the moment I notice a contact is missing, including exactly what to check first and how to confirm I'm restoring the right one before my 60 day window runs out. Finish by asking me how often I want to schedule a database cleanup so accidental deletes are less likely to happen in the first place.

🔍Plan my audit log review habit

You are helping me set up a weekly habit for reviewing my Audit Logs in my software. Here is my situation: - How many teammates have access to delete or merge contacts: [describe] - How much time I can realistically spend on this each week: [describe, e.g. 10 minutes] - What would worry me most if I saw it in the log: [describe] Based on that, give me a short weekly checklist for reviewing my Audit Logs, what to look for, and what steps to take if I spot a deletion I didn't expect. Finish by asking me whether I want a reminder set up so this review actually happens every week.