Deleting and restoring a Mailspace

Deleting a Mailspace doesn't erase it straight away. Mail stops flowing immediately and the billing for it is cancelled, but the mail server keeps the account, its mailboxes and their mail for a retention window — during which the whole Mailspace can be brought back. When that window runs out, or when you choose to remove it right away, everything is destroyed for good.

This guide covers all three actions: deleting a Mailspace, living with one that's pending deletion, and either restoring it or permanently deleting it.

Delete a Mailspace

1. Open the Mailspace. In the workspace sidebar, choose Mailspace, then click Manage on the row you want.

2. Go to Manage account. In the Mailspace's own sidebar, open the Settings dropdown and choose Manage account.

3. Find the Danger zone. The page's only card is Danger zone, headed Delete this Mailspace account, with the explanation "The account will be suspended immediately and permanently deleted after 7 days. All mailboxes, aliases, and domains will be removed. You can restore it at any time before then."

4. Click Delete account and read the Delete Mailspace account? dialog, which repeats that you have time to restore it, then confirm. Confirm your identity if you're prompted to.

5. You land back on the Mailspace list with the message "Mailspace account scheduled for deletion. It will be permanently removed in 7 days." The Mailspace is still in the list — the next section explains its new state.

Over the API

DELETE /api/mailspace/{mailspace-id} performs the same soft delete and returns 200 with an empty body. It is idempotent: deleting a Mailspace that is already pending deletion succeeds and changes nothing — in particular it does not restart the retention clock.

Restoring and permanently deleting are dashboard-only. The Mailspace API can list, show, create, resize and delete, and nothing else — there is no restore endpoint and no purge endpoint. See Mailspace API.

What happens while the Mailspace is pending deletion

• Mail stops. The mail account and its mailboxes are suspended rather than deleted, and that suspension is what stops mail being sent and received.

• Your mail is kept. Nothing is erased during the window. The mailboxes and their contents are still on the server, waiting to be switched back on if you restore.

• Billing has already stopped. The mail plan is cancelled at the moment you delete, not at the end of the window, and the unused part of the term you prepaid comes back as account credit on your balance — a credit, not a refund to your card. See Billing.

• The row changes in the Mailspace list. It gains a red Pending deletion badge and, under the account name, a Purge at line with the exact date and time it will be destroyed. Its Manage button is replaced by two actions: Restore and Delete now.

• Nothing about it can be changed. For the whole window every change to that Mailspace is refused with "This mailspace is scheduled for deletion and can't be changed. Restore it first." — no new mailboxes, aliases, domains, groups, mailing lists, mail rules or app passwords, and no plan change. Over the API a resize is rejected with the code pending_delete.

• Reading still works, deliberately, so you can go through the Mailspace and see what you're about to lose. One consequence worth knowing: because restoring is itself a change, you can't put back an individual deleted mailbox, or an item on the Deleted Emails page, until the Mailspace itself is restored.

• The domain stays claimed. A deleted Mailspace holds its mail domain for the whole window, so you can't buy a second Mailspace for that domain in the meantime. Trying to reports: "{domain} still has a mailspace scheduled for deletion. Restore it from the Mail page to keep your mailboxes, or permanently delete it first to start fresh." — the same message whether you hit it in the cart or over the API.

Restore a Mailspace

Restoring re-purchases the mail plan and then revives what was suspended, so your mailboxes and their mail come back as they were rather than being rebuilt.

1. Click Restore on the row. In the workspace sidebar, open Mailspace and click Restore on the pending-deletion row.

2. Check the cart. CloudPress opens a cart carrying the same mail plan the Mailspace already had and sends you straight to the payment step, skipping the plan picker.

3. Pay. The button reads Pay followed by the amount. If your available account credit covers the whole thing — which it often will, since deleting credited the unused part of your term — there's nothing to charge today and the button reads Confirm change instead.

4. Wait for the order to finish. It appears as Mailspace account restoration. Once it completes, the pending deletion is cleared, the mail account is un-suspended, and the mailboxes are switched back on.

5. Confirm on the Mailspace list. The Pending deletion badge and the Purge at line are gone, and the row offers Manage again.

Two details about what comes back:

• Only the mailboxes that were active when you deleted are switched back on. A mailbox you had suspended yourself, or one sitting in its own deletion window, is left exactly as it was — that state is yours to change back.
• If a separate hold is also on the Mailspace — a staff block, or an unpaid invoice — the re-purchase clears the pending deletion, but mail stays held until that hold is lifted too.

If the Restore link can't tell which Mailspace you meant, or the Mailspace turns out not to be scheduled for deletion after all, the cart says so instead of charging you: "That mailspace isn't scheduled for deletion, so there's nothing to restore."

Delete a Mailspace permanently

Most often you'll do this because you want the domain free for a fresh Mailspace straight away instead of waiting out the window.

1. Open the Mailspace list. In the workspace sidebar, choose Mailspace.

2. Click Delete now on the pending-deletion row.

3. Read the dialog and confirm. It's headed Permanently delete {domain}?. Confirm your identity if you're prompted to.

4. You land back on the list with "{domain} has been permanently deleted.", and the row is gone.

A few things to know:

• Only a Mailspace already scheduled for deletion can be permanently deleted. There is no single-step "remove it all right now" — you delete first, then delete now. Trying it otherwise reports "Only a mailspace scheduled for deletion can be permanently deleted."
• Doing nothing has the same effect. When the Purge at date passes, CloudPress purges the Mailspace automatically; Delete now only waives the wait.
• There's no further credit at this point. Billing was cancelled and credited when you first deleted, so permanent deletion touches the mail hosting only.
• Mail DNS records we manage are cleaned up. Any mail records CloudPress wrote into a DNS zone it hosts for you are removed as part of the deletion, so the zone isn't left pointing mail at a server that no longer accepts it. Records you added yourself at an outside DNS provider are yours to remove.
• The domain is free again afterwards, so you can order a new Mailspace for it.

If your Mailspace hasn't finished setting up

A Mailspace you've paid for whose domain is still Awaiting verification never reached the mail server, so there's nothing to suspend and no retention window to run. It's cancelled outright instead, and the full prepaid amount comes back as account credit.

You do that from the verification screen rather than from Manage account: click Cancel order and confirm the Cancel this mailspace account? dialog. There's no restore afterwards — if you change your mind, order again. See Verifying your domain and Ordering a Mailspace.

Next steps

• Note the Purge at date on the row if you might want the Mailspace back
• Move anything you still need out of your mailboxes first — see Connecting a mail client
• Use Delete now if you need the domain free for a new Mailspace immediately
• Only removing one address? See Managing mailboxes
• Back to Mailspace