Trash and Recovery

Deleting a page in Inklings is a two-step process by design. The first step is soft-delete: the page moves to Trash and disappears from your sidebar, but nothing is permanently destroyed. The second step — permanent deletion — only happens when you deliberately choose it. This gives you a safety net for the inevitable “wait, I needed that.”

Delete a page

Right-click any page in the sidebar and select Delete (or Move to Trash). A confirmation dialog appears showing how many descendants will also be affected.

You have two choices in the dialog:

• Delete all — moves the selected page and all its descendants to Trash simultaneously.
• Delete only this page — moves only the selected page. Its children remain active in the sidebar and may appear at root level as orphans.

After deletion, the page disappears from the active page tree. It is not gone — it is in Trash.

Caution

Deleting a parent page with “Delete all” cascades to every descendant. If “Port Ash” has twelve sub-pages, all thirteen pages move to Trash together. The confirmation dialog shows the exact count before you confirm.

View Trash

Navigate to the Trash section in the sidebar (usually at the bottom). The Trash view lists every soft-deleted page with its title and deletion timestamp. The most recently deleted pages appear first.

A fresh workspace with no deletions shows an empty Trash.

Restore a page

1. Open the Trash view.
2. Find the page you want to restore.
3. Click Restore (or right-click → Restore).

The page disappears from Trash and reappears in the active sidebar. Clicking it in the sidebar opens it in the editor with its original title and content intact.

Restore a page with its ancestors

When a child page was cascade-deleted along with its parent, the child is listed in Trash but its parent is also in Trash. Restoring the child alone would bring it back as an orphan at root level.

If you want to restore the full ancestor chain:

1. Open Trash and find the child page.
2. Click Restore.
3. When prompted, choose Restore with ancestors.

All ancestor pages are restored along with the child. The original nesting structure is recreated in the sidebar.

If you restore the child without restoring ancestors, the child returns to the active sidebar at root level. Its parent remains in Trash. You can restore the parent separately later.

Permanently delete a page from Trash

Permanent deletion is irreversible. There is no undo after this step.

1. Open the Trash view.
2. Find the page and click Delete permanently (or right-click → Delete forever).
3. Confirm when prompted.

The page is removed from Trash. It is not recoverable. Permanently deleting a parent from Trash does not automatically permanently delete its children — they remain in Trash until you act on them separately.

Empty Trash

To permanently delete everything in Trash at once:

1. Open the Trash view.
2. Click Empty Trash.
3. Confirm.

All pages currently in Trash are permanently deleted. Pages in your active workspace are not affected. This action cannot be undone.

Empty Trash on an already-empty Trash is a safe no-op — no error occurs.

Stability of the cycle

You can delete a page, restore it, delete it again, and restore it again as many times as needed. Each round-trip is stable: the page’s content is preserved through every delete and restore cycle.

See Also

• Page Hierarchy — Understand cascade deletion and how parent-child relationships work
• Event Log — Review a timeline of all page deletions and restores in your workspace
• Create and Edit Pages — The basics of page creation before you need to recover anything
• Bookmarks and History — Named anchors for important states in your workspace