Should I archive a code or delete it?
Organising · Help center · Current as of 2026-10-10
Short answer
Archive when you are fairly sure you are finished with an account but would rather not find out the hard way; the entry stays in the vault and stops appearing in your lists. Delete when you are certain: the entry goes to the trash, waits 30 days, and is then purged for good. Neither action turns two-factor authentication off at the service itself.
The important part first
Removing a code from KeyNesta does not disable 2FA on the account. The service still expects a code at the next sign-in, and you no longer have a way to produce one. Turn 2FA off at the service, or enrol a replacement there, before you delete the entry — not after.
Archive
Archived entries disappear from your spaces and groups and collect in their own view with a count. Nothing is lost and they can be restored at any time. This is the right tool for the long tail: the dormant accounts that make a list unscrollable but that you are not willing to destroy.
Trash
A deleted entry moves to the trash and can be restored from there for 30 days, after which it is removed permanently the next time the vault is unlocked. Empty trash does that immediately. A permanent removal is recorded so your other devices delete the same entry rather than quietly syncing it back. If deleting was a mistake, the earliest place to look is the trash; after that, an encrypted backup made before the deletion.
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