Delete, Suspend, and Export Projects and Databases

When a database or project isn't in active use, you can:

• Export: Package the data to download and store outside of Everlaw
• Suspend: Archive your project on the Everlaw platform in an inactive state, while keeping all documents, review data, and project analytics in place and accessible should the need arise to reactivate the project
• Delete: Permanently and irretrievably delete the project/database and all its associated data and work product from Everlaw

This article describes how to delete, suspend, and export your projects and databases, and the permissions required to do each action.

Delete a database 

Required permissions: Organization Administrator or Database Administrator

Deleting a database deletes all projects, documents, work product, and any other associated information. However, all legal holds information is preserved. The deleted database is converted to a matter, which houses any legal holds or data preservations from the deleted database. Read more in our article on legal holds.

Database and project deletions are permanent and irreversible. If you need copies of your documents and review work before closing your case on Everlaw, export the documents and review work before deleting.

• You can read more on exporting in our article on how to export documents
• You can read more about exporting projects in our article on exporting to ZIP

Important: Once a database is deleted, it cannot be retrieved. Please make sure to export and save any documents and data before any deletion. 

Organization Administrators

1. Select the O diamond to access the Organization dashboard.
2. Go to the Projects & Users tab.
3. Find the database you would like to delete.
   • If a database has Organization Administrator access disabled, you need to be a user on at least one project in that database and have Database Admin permissions to delete the database. Databases with access disabled will have the text No OA access next to their name. 
     
4. Select the three-dot menu under the More column.
5. Select Delete database.
6. You will see a dialog box requesting confirmation to delete the database.
   Select Continue.
7. A final confirmation dialog box will appear. Check the box confirming you have either exported and downloaded your projects or you do not want to export and download your projects. Do not select the "Purge all backups" option unless a court order requires it. Enter the reason for deletion and click Delete.

Database admins 

1. Select Project Management > Database Settings and make sure you are on the Overview page. 
2. Select Delete database.
3. You will see a dialog box requesting confirmation to delete the database. Select Continue.
4. A final confirmation dialog box will appear. Check the box confirming you have either exported and downloaded your projects or do not want to export and download your projects. Do not select the "Purge all backups" option unless a court order requires it. Enter the reason for deletion and click Delete.

Delete projects 

Required permissions: Organization Administrator or Project Admin and Database Admin permissions. Project admins who are not Database Admins or Organization Admins  can delete all of the documents inside of a project, but cannot delete the project. 

Deleting a project deletes the project, the documents in that project, and the work product applied to those documents.

If you delete a partial project or if you have more than one complete project, deleting the project will not remove the associated documents from your database, as they will still be in the remaining complete project. Since a database must have at least one complete project, deleting the last complete project in a database will prompt you to continue to database deletion.

Important: Once a project is deleted, it cannot be retrieved. Please make sure to export and save any documents and data before any deletion. 

Organization administrators 

1. Select the O diamond to access the Organization dashboard.
2. Go to the Projects & Users tab.
3. Find the project you would like to delete and select the three-dot menu under the More column.
   • If a database has Organization Administrator access disabled, you need to be a user on that project and have Database Admin permissions to delete the project. Databases with access disabled will have the text No OA access next to their name. 
4. Select Delete project.
5. You will see a dialog box requesting confirmation to delete the project. Select Continue.
6. A final confirmation dialog box will appear. Check the box confirming you have either exported and downloaded your project or do not want to export and download your project. Do not select the "Purge all backups" option unless a court order requires it. Enter the reason for deletion and click Delete. 

Database admins 

1. Select Project Management > Database Settings and make sure you are on the Overview page. 
2. Find the project you would like to delete and select the three-dot menu under the Actions column.
3. Select Delete project.
4. You will see a dialog box requesting confirmation to delete the database. Select Continue.
5. A final confirmation dialog box will appear. Check the box confirming you have exported and downloaded your project or do not want to export and download your project. Do not select the "Purge all backups" option unless a court order requires it. Type "DELETE" in the text box and click Delete.

Suspend and Reactivate

Required permissions: Organization Admin or Database Admin.

• Project admins who do not have Database Admin permissions or Organization Administrator permissions cannnot suspend or reactivate databases and projects.
• Database Admins cannot suspend individual projects that they are are not Project Admins of.

Similar to database deletions, suspending the last complete project in a database will prompt you to continue to database suspension.

Organization administrators 

Similar to database deletions, Organization Administrators can suspend and reactivate both databases and projects through the Projects & Users tab on the Organization Administrator page.

1. Select the O diamond to access the Organization dashboard.
2. Go to the Projects & Users tab.
3. Find the database or project  you would like to suspend/reactivate and select the three-dot menu under the More column. 
4. Choose to suspend or reactivates.
   • If you suspend at the database-level, you have the additional option to suspend immediately or at the end of the current billing month.
   • If a database has Organization Administrator access disabled, you need to be a user on that project and have Database Admin permissions to suspend or reactive the project. Databases with access disabled will have the text No OA access next to their name. 

Database administrators 

Similar to database deletions, database admins can suspend and reactivate both databases and projects through the Database Settings page.

Next to the database status, select Suspend database or Reactivate database. 

Projects can be suspended from this page in the three-dot menu under the Actions"column. 

Export projects 

On Everlaw, there is no database-level export, but there are project exports. To export a database, you export the individual projects that make up the database. Learn more about exporting projects in our article on exporting to ZIP.

Required permissions: Organization Admin or Database Admin and Project admin

• Project admins who do not have Organization Administrator or Database Admin permissions can still export all the documents in a project through the results table. For more information on how to do this type of export, please read the help article here. 

Organization administrators

Similar to database deletions, Organization Administrators can export projects through the Projects & Users tab on the Organization Administrator page.

1. Select the O diamond to access the Organization dashboard.
2. Go to the Projects & Users tab.
3. Find the  project  you would like to export and select the three-dot menu under the More column. 
   • For databases that have Organization Administrator access disabled, you will need to be added to at least one project on the database and also have database admin permissions in order to export projects in said database. Databases with Organization Administrator access disabled will have the text "No OA access" next to their name. 
4. Select Export project.
5. Choose which files you want to export, the settings for native file naming, and encryption.
6. Select Export.
7. This starts a task that you can track on the Batches & Exports column of the product Homepage. Once the export has completed, you can download it from this card. 

Database administrators 

Similar to database deletions, Database Admins can export projects through the Database Settings page.

1. Select Project Management > Database Settings and make sure you are on the Overview page. 
2. Find the project you would like to export and select the three-dot menu under the Actions column.
3. Select Export project.
4. Choose which files you want to export, the settings for native file naming, and encryption.
5. Select Export.
6. This starts a task that you can track on the Batches & Exports column of the product Homepage. Once the export has completed, you can download it from this card. 

Permissions recap

For a recap of the information covered in this article, please refer to the permissions table below.

Permissions level	Delete projects	Delete databases	Suspend or reactivate projects and databases	Export projects  *For a fee, Everlaw can also create exports for you
Project admin	Cannot delete projects. Can delete documents.	Cannot delete databases.	Cannot suspend or reactivate projects or databases.	Cannot export projects. Can export documents.
Database admin	Can delete projects in a database from the Database Settings page.	Can delete databases you are a database admin on from the Database Settings page.	Can suspend and reactivate projects and databases from the Database Settings page.	Can export projects in a database from the Database Settings page.
Organization Administrator *if a database has Organization Administrator access disabled, you must be added to a project on the database and also have database admin permissions	Can delete projects in a database from the Projects & Users Organization Administrator page or Database Settings page.	Can delete databases from the Projects & Users section of the Organization Administrator page or Database Settings page.	Can suspend and reactivate projects and databases from the Projects & Users section of the Organization Administrator page or Database Settings page.	Can export projects in a database from the Projects & Users section of the Organization Administrator page or Database Settings page.