Deleting & Restoring

When you no longer need an instance, you delete it. Deleting is intentional and final by design: it removes the instance and its data volume, so everything on it—notebooks, files, and installed packages—is permanently lost.

Deleting an instance

Choose Delete… from an instance's menu. Because this destroys data, you'll be asked to type the instance's name to confirm.

Deleting first stops the instance (ending compute charges) and then schedules it for removal. Deletion completes within 7 days.

Deleting is not the same as stopping. Stopping parks an instance and keeps your files; deleting removes the machine and its data volume for good. If you just want to pause and avoid compute charges, Stop instead.

Restoring by mistake

The window before final removal exists as a last-resort safety net—not a backup. If you delete an instance by accident, choose Restore from its menu before the window closes and the instance comes back with its data intact.

Restore limit

Restore is meant for genuine mistakes, so it's capped at 3 self-service restores per instance. After that, the Restore action is disabled and you'll need to email [e-mail] to recover the instance.

For anything you can't afford to lose, don't rely on the restore window. Keep it in version control, or publish your figures and data to GoFigr where they're preserved independently of the instance.