---
title: "Form Entry Deletion Settings"
slug: "form-entry-deletion-settings"
description: "How to enable permanent deletion of form entries in infoodle (Approval tab of the form builder) instead of default soft delete, so entries cannot be recovered."
updated: 2026-09-07T23:49:50Z
published: 2026-09-07T23:49:50Z
canonical: "help.infoodle.com/form-entry-deletion-settings"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.infoodle.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Form Entry Deletion Settings

This article explains the deletion setting found on the Approval tab of the form builder, under "**Choose how to handle form entry deletion**."

![Image](https://cdn.document360.io/d198920d-a212-4177-85f9-e1abc92e7ab3/Images/Documentation/image-L6W0CAKY.png)

---

## Default deletion behaviour

By default, when a form entry is deleted in infoodle it is **marked as deleted** — it is removed from the active entries list but is not permanently removed from the database. This means it can potentially be recovered if needed.

## Enabling permanent deletion

If you want entries to be **permanently and immediately removed** from the database when deleted, you can enable this per form:

1. Open the form and click **Edit**
2. Go to the **Approval** tab
3. Scroll to "**Choose how to handle form entry deletion**"
4. Tick **Enable permanent deletion of entries for this form**
5. Click **Save**, then go to the **Publish** tab to publish

Once this is enabled, any entry deleted from this form cannot be recovered.

This cannot be undone

Permanently deleted entries are gone immediately and cannot be restored. Only enable this setting if you are confident entries from this form do not need to be retained after deletion.

---

## When to use this setting

Permanent deletion is useful when:

- The form collects sensitive personal data that must be fully erased on request (e.g. for privacy or data compliance reasons)
- You want to keep the database clean without soft-deleted entries accumulating in the background

For most forms, the default soft-delete behaviour is sufficient.

Related Pages

[Form Auto-Approval](/v1/docs/form-auto-approval) [Form Manual Approval Workflows](/v1/docs/form-manual-approval-workflows) [Manually Approving a Form Entry](/v1/docs/form-manual-approval-workflows)