> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: /docs/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # How to archive and restore flows > Keep your workspace organized by archiving retired flows and restoring them when you need them. Archive flows you no longer use to remove them from the default views without deleting their run history. You can archive flows yourself or use workspace policies to archive dormant flows and restore flows that run again. You need permission to manage flows (`manage_flows`) to archive or unarchive them. To configure workspace policies, you also need permission to manage automations. ## Archive a flow 1. Open **Flows** in your workspace. 2. Open the flow's action menu, either in its list row or on its detail page, and select **Archive**. 3. Review the confirmation and select **Archive**. An archived flow does not appear in the default view of the **Flows** page. Its deployments do not appear in the default view of the **Deployments** page, and they are labeled **Archived**. Search, the command palette, and the flow pickers still return the flow, with an **Archived** label. Runs of an archived flow also show the label. Favorited flows stay in **Favorites**, including archived flows. ### Flows with schedules that are on Prefect Cloud does not archive a flow while one of its deployments has a schedule that is on. The confirmation lists those deployments, with links to their schedules. * If you can edit those deployments, the confirmation offers **Pause and archive**. This pauses the deployments and then archives the flow. * Otherwise, pause the deployments or turn their schedules off, then archive the flow. Unarchiving the flow does not resume the deployments. Resume them yourself when you want their schedules to run again. ### What archiving changes > [!NOTE] > > Archiving never deletes run history. Your plan's normal retention policy still applies. Archiving deletes the flow's runs that its deployment schedules created and that have not started yet, including late runs. Pausing a deployment deletes the same runs. Runs that you scheduled yourself, and runs that have already started, are not changed. Archiving does not cancel runs, and it leaves the flow's deployments as they are. ### Automations that run the flow's deployments If an automation runs one of the flow's deployments, the confirmation names the deployment and links to the automations. Archiving does not stop these runs. With [archived flow restoration](#restore-archived-flows-when-they-run-again) on, the next run unarchives the flow. ## Find archived flows and deployments The **Flows** and **Deployments** pages have **All** and **Favorites** tabs. On the **All** tab, open the menu beside the tabs to choose a view: * **Unarchived** (the default) hides archived flows and their deployments. * **All** shows archived and unarchived items. * **Archived** shows only archived items. The menu button is highlighted while you are not in the default view. When a search also matches archived items, select **Show archived results** to include them. ## Restore a flow Open the flow's action menu and select **Unarchive**. You can unarchive a flow from its list row in the **Archived** or **All** view, or from its detail page. The flow and its deployments return to the default views. Unarchiving does not resume paused deployments or turn schedules back on. ## Archive or restore multiple flows 1. Open **Flows** and select the flows you want to change. Select all to include every flow that matches the current view and search. 2. Select **Archive selected flows** or **Unarchive selected flows**. 3. Review the confirmation and the result. When you archive several flows, the confirmation lists the flows whose deployments have schedules that are on. If you can edit those deployments, select **Pause and archive** to pause them and archive every selected flow. Otherwise, Prefect Cloud archives the other selected flows and leaves those flows unarchived. ## Run an archived flow What happens when you start a run of an archived flow depends on [archived flow restoration](#restore-archived-flows-when-they-run-again): * **Restoration on:** the run dialog warns that the flow is archived. The run starts, and the flow is unarchived. * **Restoration off:** the Prefect Cloud UI does not start a run of an archived flow. Unarchive the flow first, or turn on archived flow restoration. Automations, the API, and the Prefect CLI and SDK can still start runs of an archived flow. With restoration off, the flow stays archived when these runs start. ## Enable automatic archival and restoration Prefect Cloud provides two policies that create automations for flow archival. Both policies are off by default, and you can enable them independently in each workspace. 1. Open the workspace menu in the upper left and select **Settings**. 2. Under **Account Settings → Controls**, make sure **Workspace policies** is enabled. If you cannot change this setting, ask an account administrator. 3. Under **Workspace Settings → Policies**, enable **Dormant flow archival**, **Archived flow restoration**, or both. 4. For **Dormant flow archival**, set the number of days without runs and select **Save** after changing the setting. Automations created by enabled policies appear in the **Workspace policies** section of the workspace's automations list. Enabling workspace policies in account controls alone does not turn on either policy for a workspace. ### Archive dormant flows **Dormant flow archival** archives flows that have had no runs for the configured window. The default is **90 days**, and you can set a value from **1 to 365 days** (`inactive_days` in the API). Prefect Cloud uses the shorter of that window and your plan's run retention. For example, a 90-day setting on a plan with 30-day run retention uses a 30-day window. The settings page shows your plan's retention. A flow is eligible when all of the following are true: * It is not already archived. * It has not been created or updated within the window. * It has no recent runs and no unfinished runs, including scheduled, pending, running, or paused runs. * None of its deployments has a schedule that is on. * None of its deployments was created or updated within the window. * No enabled automation runs one of its deployments through a **Run a deployment** action that selects that deployment. Run activity uses the run's start time, or its expected start time if it has not started. A flow that has never run must still be older than the window. Manually unarchiving a flow updates it, giving it a full window before it can be archived again. Some runs cannot be predicted from the workspace's configuration. Examples are runs started from another flow, from an external system through the API, or by an automation that infers the deployment from its triggering event. Turn on archived flow restoration so that these flows come back when they run. Prefect Cloud checks daily and processes up to 50 eligible flows per workspace, spread across the day. Archival is gradual: a large backlog can take several days to clear. Each eligible flow produces a [`prefect.flow.dormant` event](/docs/v3/api-ref/events/flow-events#prefect-flow-dormant), which triggers the archive action. The flow is checked again before the event is emitted. ### Restore archived flows when they run again **Archived flow restoration** unarchives a flow when Prefect Cloud observes a `Scheduled`, `Pending`, or `Running` flow-run event whose related flow is archived. This applies to flows archived manually as well as those archived by an automation. There are no settings beyond enabling or disabling it. Restoration can happen when a run is scheduled, before execution starts. If you resume a deployment schedule for an archived flow, that schedule can create runs; with restoration enabled, its next run restores the flow. With restoration disabled, the flow stays archived even if you run it again. The automation groups matching events by flow within a 10-minute window to avoid repeated restoration actions during a burst of runs. It reacts to the first matching event; the window does not add a 10-minute delay. It matches the event names above, so custom state names do not match unless the run also emits one of those events. ### Turn off a policy Turn off either policy under **Workspace Settings → Policies**. Turning off dormant flow archival leaves already archived flows archived. You can still unarchive them manually or use archived flow restoration. ## Use archival in your own automations When [creating an automation](/docs/v3/how-to-guides/automations/creating-automations.md), choose **Archive a flow** (`archive-flow`) or **Unarchive a flow** (`unarchive-flow`) as the action. Select a specific flow or infer it from the triggering event's resource or related resources. An archive action fails if one of the flow's deployments has a schedule that is on; it does not pause them. Manual, bulk, and automated changes emit the same [`prefect.flow.archived` and `prefect.flow.unarchived` events](/docs/v3/api-ref/events/flow-events). Use them to trigger notifications or other actions regardless of how the change was made. Repeating an archive or unarchive action on a flow already in that state does not emit another event. ## Filter archived flows through the API The Prefect Cloud API includes archived flows by default. To select only archived flows, send this body to `POST /flows/filter` relative to your workspace API URL: ```json theme={null} { "flows": { "archived": { "eq_": true } } } ``` Use `false` for unarchived flows, or omit `archived` to include both. The same flow filter works with flow counts and pagination, and as the nested `flows` filter when querying deployments. Flow responses include `archived` and `archived_at`; unarchiving resets `archived_at` to `null`. To change a flow's archived state, use `POST /flows/{id}/archive` or `POST /flows/{id}/unarchive`. Both return `204` on success, including when the flow is already in the requested state. Archiving returns `409` while one of the flow's deployments has a schedule that is on; the API does not pause schedules for you. Archiving deletes the same scheduled runs as archiving in the UI. For bulk changes, use `POST /flows/bulk_archive` or `POST /flows/bulk_unarchive` with a nonempty `flows` filter and a `limit` from 1 to 50. The response reports per-flow results (`ARCHIVED`, `UNARCHIVED`, or `BLOCKED`), so a blocked flow does not stop the rest of the batch. A `BLOCKED` result lists the deployments with schedules that are on in `scheduled_deployments`. ### Find archival automations with older clients Use `prefect` **3.9.0 or later** to read automations that contain archive or unarchive actions through the CLI or Python client. This version requires **Python 3.11 or later**. Older clients omit these automations from `prefect automation ls`, `prefect transfer`, and automation lookups such as `Automation.read()`. Inspecting one can report it as not found, even though it is visible in Prefect Cloud. Upgrade your client and, if needed, Python, or manage the automation in the Cloud UI.