Look What I HaveHelp › Deleting a story
Deleting a story
Delete stops it being shown to anybody, at once. It does not destroy the story, and it never will.
Deleting one
- Open the photo and find the story in the list beside it.
- Tap the bin on that story. Each story has its own.
- Confirm. It asks once, and the other button says No, keep it rather than Cancel, so both choices are plain.
From that moment it is gone from her screen, gone from the family, and gone from any link already sent.
Bringing one back
Stories you deleted is on the main screen. It lists them newest first, four at a time, each with the photo it was about and a Bring it back button.
A story comes back to exactly the state it was deleted from. One that had been kept private comes back private; one that had been shared comes back shared. An undo that quietly published something is not an undo.
A tablet belonging to somebody who has never deleted a story does not carry a bin she has to learn to ignore. There is no number beside it either — "3" next to the word deleted reads as three things waiting to be dealt with.
Why it is not called "Recently deleted"
Because nothing ages out of it. On a phone, "Recently deleted" means a 30-day window after which things really are destroyed. Here there is no such window and no such destruction, so a screen with that name would promise something untrue.
What "delete" actually does
It marks the story as retracted. The file — her voice, and the video if the camera was on — stays on your family's machine at full size, and the file is never touched.
This is the one rule in the whole archive with no exceptions: a story is never destroyed. A voice cannot be recorded again, a tablet gets handed round, and a mis-tap on a screen should not be able to end something nobody can remake.
If you genuinely need a story's file gone — someone said something they regret, or it should never have been recorded — that is a conversation with whoever looks after the archive, and it is deliberately not a button.
Deleting a photo
She cannot, and that is on purpose. A photo that should not be offered can be hidden by whoever looks after the archive. The file stays.
Deleting everything
If your family wants the whole archive gone, that is a real thing we will do — see delete my account.