Archiving contacts 📁

Archiving contacts is the easiest way to remove unused contacts from your active Contacts page. Archiving removes contacts from your Engage recipient lists, transaction or contact filters, and other places where you may see unused contacts in your account.

Archiving is reversible! You can unarchive contacts if you make a mistake.

To archive a single contact and provide a reason for the archival, go to your Contacts page and click on the relevant contact to go to their contact profile.

Click the Actions button in the upper right, and select Archive contact.
A window will appear, prompting you to enter a reason for archiving this contact and any notes you want to add. Click Archive to confirm.

To archive multiple contacts, click the checkbox on the left side of each contact you'd like to archive. Click the Actions menu on the left and select Archive.

Viewing archived contacts 👀

Click the Actions menu on the right side of the Contacts page.
At the bottom of the list of options, click Archived. This will take you to your list of archived contacts to view or export.

Unarchiving contacts 🔄

If you archived a contact by mistake, you can unarchive them anytime.

When viewing your archived contacts, click the checkbox on the left side of each contact you'd like to unarchive.
Click the Actions button on the left, and select Unarchive from the options.

The contacts will be added back to your list of active contacts.

Deleting contacts 🗑

You can delete contacts from the individual contact profile or your Contacts page, however, it's only possible to delete contacts with no associated data on your account. It is not possible to restore contacts once they have been deleted.

You cannot delete a contact if:

The contact has submitted any online transactions
The contact has a recurring donation
The contact has placed auction bids
The contact has purchased tickets
The contact has received email or SMS communications via Engage
The contact is a team member on one or more of your campaigns

Delete a single contact 👤

To delete a single contact, go to your Contacts page, and click on the relevant contact to go to their contact profile.

Click the Actions button in the upper right, and select Delete contact.

If the option to delete the contact is unavailable, a notice will appear saying "This contact cannot be deleted" explaining the reason. If you still want to remove this contact, you can archive them instead.

Delete multiple contacts 👨‍👩‍👦

To delete multiple contacts, go to your Contacts page.
Click the checkbox on the left side of each contact you'd like to delete.

Click the Actions button on the left side and select Delete Contacts.

If the option to delete the contacts is unavailable, a notice will appear saying "The following contacts can't be deleted," showing which contacts are blocking the delete action. If you still want to remove these contacts, you can archive them instead.

FAQ 🤔

I have a contact in my account who is deceased, and I cannot delete them.

You aren't able to delete contacts that have associated reporting data in your account, so it's likely that this contact had submitted a donation, received an email communication, or otherwise interacted with your account in some way. We recommend that records like these are marked Deceased using the archive functionality – this will still remove the contact from your active list of contacts.

I deleted a contact by accident. Can I restore a deleted contact?

Unfortunately, it is not possible to restore a deleted contact. We encourage organizations to regularly export and safely store their contact information for their own archival purposes. You'll need to re-import any contacts that have been deleted by mistake.

Are archived contacts sent Engage emails or SMS messages? Are archived contacts checked against active duplicates?
No – archived contacts are excluded from all aspects of your account, including recipient lists for Engage communications, filters (on your Transactions, Tickets, and Recurring Plans pages), and the system detection for duplicate contacts.

Can I archive all my contacts at once? How can I archive contacts in bulk?

While you cannot archive all the contacts in your account at once, you can select the entire page of contacts and archive them in groups of 20.

Can I export my archived contacts? Where are the "archive reasons" recorded?

Yes! You can export a list of your archived contacts like you would with your active contacts. Archive reason, notes, and date/time (UTC) are recorded for archived contacts. Learn more about how to export your contacts →

Can I delete contacts that have only submitted offline donations (via cash or check) or test donations?

Yes! Contacts that have only submitted offline donations (via cash or check) can be permanently deleted, provided they meet the other deletion requirements.