When you delete a ticket, it isn't actually permanently deleted. Instead, it is moved into the Deleted Tickets view, where you can restore it (move it back into its original view) or permanently delete it.
Administrators can view and recover deleted tickets. Agents must be granted permission to view and recover deleted tickets (see Enabling agents to delete tickets).
Viewing deleted tickets
Deleted tickets are moved into a Deleted Tickets view for 30 days, where you can restore them or permanently delete them. After 30 days they are automatically permanently deleted.
If an agent's permission to delete tickets, or to view deleted tickets, is removed, then the agent will no longer be able to access the Deleted Tickets view.
To open the Deleted tickets view
- Click the Views icon (
) in the sidebar, then click Deleted tickets in the Views list.
The deleted tickets appear in the main window.
You cannot open tickets directly from the Deleted tickets view. To view a previously-deleted ticket you'll need to restore it. Restoring a ticket returns it to its original view, exactly as it was before it was deleted.
Restoring a deleted ticket
While a ticket is in the Deleted Tickets view (for up to 30 days), you can restore it if you need to. When you restore a deleted ticket, it is removed from the Deleted Tickets view and appears in the view it was in before it was deleted.
To restore a deleted ticket
- Click the Views icon (
) in the sidebar, then click Deleted tickets in the Views list.
- Click the checkbox(es) beside the ticket(s) you want to recover.
The deleted ticket options appear in the upper right.
- Click the deleted ticket options menu, then select Restore ticket.
The recovered ticket is removed from the Deleted Tickets view and appears in the view it was in before it was deleted.
29 Comments
Thank you for this, but just as in Suspended Tickets view, we would like the ability to set permissions on who can see these types of views.
Will this Deleted tickets view be available to all agents or can we change the view's permissions?
Is this a new default setting for all Agents to see the Deleted Tickets list at the bottom of the standard Views? (I don't remember seeing it there last week...)
Thanks,
Chris
Hey guys!
In the Viewing Deleted Tickets section above, it specifies that if a user doesn't have permission to delete a ticket, they will not be able to access the Deleted Tickets view. So if your users are allowed to delete, they'll see the view. Otherwise, no. :)
Sorting of columns in this view doesn't work.
Hello all,
We found a serious issue with the 'Deleted Tickets' view. It shows all deleted tickets, also those that the engineer has no rights to view (as they do not have rights to that group). As our Management Assistants are in Zendesk as well this cause our engineers to be able to see confidential, private, emails. Albeit, only the Subject, but that can already be confidential.
As it is possible to specifically hide the 'Deleted Tickets' view in the Roles, we have done that without removing the Delete rights themselves.
We are reporting this issue to Zendesk Support and our account manager, but posted for everyone here as well.
Kind regards,
Raoul de Grunt
This is why you need to put these kind of features in BETA for feedback for an extended period.
Can you please not show "Deleted Tickets" view in red. The red implies I need to take an action or requires my attention. This is not the case for Deleted Tickets.
Agreed, the red makes it look like an action is required and is very distracting.
It's also very frustrating that we're unable to remove this from our views - I understand why a lot of people wanted this view, but it's not necessary for us. Is there a reason it can't be removed the same way any other view can be?
I found the switch to toggle the visibility of this View for your Agents.

Under People > Roles > Edit, there's a checkbox for Can Delete Tickets and another for Can View Deleted Tickets. If you toggle those off, your Agents associated with that Role shouldn't be able to see the Deleted Tickets view, or individual Deleted Tickets, either. (see below)
Hi,
Is anyone able to "sort" the deleted tickets view? I don't think the sorting is working at all - regardless of the column that you sort, regardless of the order (ascending/descending).
Can anyone else also confirm this please?
@Ali -> they have acknowledged this bug and will be fixing it soon
@ ali -> see this link https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/228141247/comments/208761027
Thanks Storm.
I must have missed that note :)
Some preview of the ticket on hover would be mighty useful - otherwise if the subject is unclear, our only option is to recover and go looking for it...
+1 to Andrew's above comment.
Definitely a "hover over preview" would be really useful.
The better option (ideally) would be if we can get the deleted tickets to be viewed the same way we can with the suspended tix (i.e. click on the ticket and it opens up the ticket in a lightbox)
Is there a possibility to recover a ticket except for the attachments or recover only certain parts. Some clients have requested tickets with attached IP, would be great to keep the ticket except the attachments.
Hi Joshua! Welcome to the Community!
Recovering deleted tickets is an all-or-nothing scenario; there's no way to select which parts you want to keep.
However, I think there's another solution that would work for you. Our Ticket Redaction App allows you to redact strings of text and attachments from tickets so they're no longer visible. Redaction events show up in the ticket's audit log, too, so you'll be able to see that something was removed.
Hope that helps!
Hi,
We are in a position where we would like to know that a ticket has been deleted or reinstated. It appears that triggers do not allow you to refer to a status of 'deleted'. If I set up a trigger to fire when the status changes, it does not fire when a ticket is reinstated. I can see in the event history that the status changed from deleted to open, but the trigger does not fire.
Is there any way to detect in a trigger that a deletion or reinstatement has occurred?
I would like to +1 both Andrew Mills and Ali Ayaz's comments above regarding the ability to see the contents of Deleted ticket before choosing to either permanently delete them or restore them. The problem I see is that I can only view the subject of the ticket and when determining if it is garbage or actually a mistaken deletion my only option is to restore it. However, this is problematic when dealing with a large queue of issues.
Is it possible to search only the deleted tickets by ticket content? I am trying to find a specific deleted ticket to restore but when I search I don't have a status 'deleted' as an option and entering it manually as a search parameter gives no results.
Hi Richard -
What you'll need to do is go into your "deleted tickets" view and search through the subject lines. The content is not searchable on deleted tickets.
Thanks Nicole :)
Please ask your developers to consider adding an option to include deleted tickets in the search function either by checking a box to 'include deleted tickets in search' or by adding a separate search box for deleted tickets.
Scrolling through the subject lines isn't as precise or efficient as the search and within the search UI it does not say that this search does not include deleted tickets, so the possibility to miss a ticket because it is deleted is quite likely.
Hey Richard -
I encourage you to share the details of your request in the Support product feedback topic. We gauge interest and need of requests by the number of votes and comments on feature requests submitted there.
Thanks Nicole. Will do :)
Is there something in particular we have to do for the subject to display in the deleted items report? One of our agents has been complaining, and our view doesn't reflect the documentation above.
As an example, we have a ticket created with a subject...
That does not appear in the deleted items report
Please do not deleted ticket
Hi S M -
I apologize, I don't understand your question. Can you clarify?
Is there a way to report on deleted tickets? I want to know which users are deleting tickets and how many over a period of time.
@Bob — if you’ve an Enterprise and above plan, you can use the audit logs for this. Else, if you’re not on a plan that has audit logs, you’ll have to track it via an event trigger, in which a users “deletes” a ticket by applying a macro, and that macro action is recorded (can be via zapier if you don’t anyone who can program, or via a google script that can be called via a external target, and the user id and the ticket id can be stored — does require knowledge of g.scripting).
Hope that helps :))
UPDATE: forgot to add that if you use any of the two methods (zapier, or g.scripts) the actual deletion of the ticket will be done via that “automation” and not by the actual user. Hence, you need to restrict users from being able to delete tickets by modifying their role(s) and taking away the ability to delete tickets.
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