Recently Deleted and Recovered Content

Recently deleted and recovered content

CHYOA provides two different safeguards after writing is deleted. Open your Library from the profile menu to find both:

Use Recently deleted when the original should return to its former location. Use Recovered content when another member's deletion has already become final and only a preserved copy remains.

Recover a chapter within 30 days

Open Recently deleted and find the chapter. Its deletion date and remaining recovery time appear with it. Select Recover before that period ends. The original chapter returns to its story as a draft, and its chapter editor opens so you can review it before publishing or submitting it again.

A chapter from a Private story can be recovered only while you have a current Owner, Editor, Assistant Editor, or Author writing role for that story. The chapter remains listed during its recovery period, but Recover is unavailable without that permission.

Recover a deleted preceding chapter before recovering one of its former follow-up chapters. A follow-up cannot return while its preceding chapter is unavailable.

To preserve a Link Chapter's destination, recover its target before recovering the Link Chapter. If the target is unavailable, recovering the Link Chapter detaches that target instead.

Recover a deleted story

Select Recover on a story to return the story and its associated recoverable chapters as drafts. The story editor opens so you can review the story before submitting it again. Some chapters may still require separate recovery:

• A chapter removed by CHYOA stays deleted until that chapter is recovered separately.
• A follow-up chapter stays deleted until its preceding chapter is available.
• A Link Chapter stays deleted until its target can be restored, or returns without the unavailable target.

Review the recovered story in its Story Map before publishing or editing further. Check that its branches and Link Chapter destinations lead where intended.

Understand what can be deleted

A chapter must have no follow-up chapters before it can be deleted. A chapter that is the destination of a Link Chapter also cannot be deleted while that link points to it; see Managing Branches, Links, Move, and Reorder to retarget or delete the link. The story's first chapter cannot be deleted separately.

These checks prevent a deletion from immediately leaving active branches without a working path. They do not replace the recovery order above when several connected chapters or a complete story have been deleted.

Use a private recovered copy

If another member deletes a content chapter you wrote—or deletes the story containing it—and the original is not recovered, CHYOA preserves a private, read-only copy under Recovered content after the 30-day recovery period ends. This applies whether the chapter was published, submitted for approval, or saved as a draft. No private copy appears during the recovery period, so recovering the original does not create a duplicate.

Open the copy to review the chapter text and its original story, preceding chapter, follow-up question, tags, and dates. Expand Original chapter source to see the exact Markdown and chapter syntax, then select Copy Markdown and paste it into a new draft.

The copy is available only to you and cannot be edited, published, or restored to its former story. It does not expire after another 30 days and remains with your account until account deletion.

Chapters you deleted yourself, Link Chapters, and content removed by CHYOA do not create copies.

Older deletions

Recovered content cannot create a copy for a deletion recorded before that Library feature was introduced or for content that had already been permanently removed.