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Deletion Flow Enhancements

Deletion Flow Enhancements

4
posts
2023–2025

GitLab is enhancing its deletion flow for groups and projects across all pricing tiers. This includes implementing a pending deletion state with self-service recovery, standardized status indicators, and an extended recovery window (now 30 days on GitLab.com). Future iterations will bring consistency to Admin area deletions, immediate namespace path reuse, a centralized 'Trash' interface, clear separation of delete actions (temporary vs. permanent), and bulk management capabilities for deleted items. This post details the default enablement of delayed deletion for Ultimate and Premium tiers, with a 7-day retention period on SaaS and configurable delays (1-90 days) for self-managed instances. The immediate deletion option from the Admin Area and group settings will be removed in GitLab 16.0.

2025

Migrating by direct transfer is generally available

7/31/2025

This post announces the general availability of migrating GitLab groups and projects by direct transfer. It highlights improvements over file export migrations, such as direct transfer of entire groups, post-import user contribution mapping, improved reliability for large projects via batching and concurrency, and enhanced migration insights. It also provides performance examples, details on enabling the feature for different GitLab environments, and guidance on best practices for migration, including network requirements, version compatibility, user mapping, and duration reduction. The post also mentions future work on supporting offline instances.

Improving GitLab's deletion flow: What to expect in coming months

7/14/2025

Introduced a pending deletion state for all deleted projects and groups, enabling self-service recovery across all tiers. Standardized deletion status indicators and extended the recovery window to 30 days on GitLab.com. Future work includes Admin area consistency, immediate namespace path reuse, a centralized 'Trash' interface, clear action separation (delete vs. delete permanently), and bulk management.

2023

How to migrate GitLab groups and projects more efficiently

8/2/2023

Introduced batching for exporting and importing CI/CD pipeline relations to resolve timeouts and improve migration performance. This involves splitting CI pipeline data into multiple batches for concurrent Sidekiq job processing. Also detailed factors influencing migration duration and provided average import times for project relations.

Updates to GitLab’s delayed deletion feature for projects and groups

4/3/2023

Introduced default delayed deletion for projects and groups in GitLab 16.0 for Ultimate and Premium tiers. SaaS users get a 7-day retention, while self-managed users can configure 1-90 days. Removed the immediate deletion option from Admin Area and group settings. Projects are automatically renamed with `-deleted-[projectID]` during pending deletion, allowing immediate reuse of the original name. API parameters `delayed_project_deletion` and `delayed_group_deletion` are removed from `/application/settings` API Task actions, and the API now requires double confirmation for complete deletion.