Strapi v4 - Soft Delete plugin

Powerful Strapi based Soft Delete feature, never loose content again

A plugin for Strapi Headless CMS that provides a Soft Delete feature.

✨ Features

🛢 Database
- Adds _softDeletedAt, _softDeletedById and _softDeletedByType fields to all your collection and single content types. Those fields are not visible in the Content Manager nor through the API.
🗂️ Content Manager & API
- The delete from the Content Manager & API behaves as a soft delete. It will set _softDeletedAt to the current datetime, _softDeletedById to the action initiator id that deleted it and _softDeletedByType to the type of the delete action initiator.
👤 RBAC
- The Delete is renamed to Soft Delete and it is located in the Settings > Roles > Edit a Role > Collection Types | Single Types section.
- A new admin permission is added to the Settings > Roles > Edit a Role > Collection Types | Single Types section. This is the Deleted Read permission. This will allow the admin role to view the soft deleted entries.
- A new admin permission is added to the Settings > Roles > Edit a Role > Collection Types | Single Types section. This is the Deleted Restore permission. This will allow the admin role to restore the soft deleted entries.
- A new admin permission is added to the Settings > Roles > Edit a Role > Collection Types | Single Types section. This is the Delete Permanently permission. This will allow the admin role to delete permanently the soft deleted entries.
- A new admin permission is added to the Settings > Roles > Edit a Role > Plugins > Soft Delete section. This is the global Read permission of the plugin. This will allow the admin role to view the Soft Delete item in the Admin left Panel. Accessing this will list all the content types the admin role has access to. They can restore or delete permanently the entries from here depending on the above permissions.
- A new admin permission is added to the Settings > Roles > Edit a Role > Plugins > Soft Delete section. This is the global Settings permission of the plugin. This will allow the admin role to view the Soft Delete plugin settings.
🗂️ Soft Delete Explorer (Admin left Panel item): Displays Soft Deleted Collection & Single Type entries
- ♻️ Entries can be restored with the Restore action. This will set the fields _softDeletedAt, _softDeletedById and _softDeletedByType to null.
- 🗑️ Entries can be permanently deleted with the Delete Permanently action. This will delete the entry permanently from the databse.
⚙️ Settings
- Restoration Behavior: This setting allows you to choose the behavior when restoring an entry.
  - Single Type
    - Soft Delete: Restoring a Single Type entry will restore it to the Content Manager explorer and Soft Delete the existing entry.
    - Delete Permanently: Restoring a Single Type entry will restore it to the Content Manager explorer and Delete Permanently the existing entry.
  - Draft & Publish
    - Draft: Restoring a Draft & Publish entry will restore it to the Content Manager explorer as a draft.
    - Unchanged: Restoring a Draft & Publish entry will restore it to the Content Manager explorer unchanged, meaning that if the entry was published, it will be restored as published.

⛔ Permissions

Section	Permission	Description
Collection & Single Types	`Deleted Restore`	Allows the admin role to restore the soft deleted entries.
Collection & Single Types	`Deleted Read`	Allows the admin role to view the soft deleted entries.
Collection & Single Types	`Delete Permanently`	Allows the admin role to delete permanently the soft deleted entries.
Plugins	`Read`	Allows the admin role to view the Soft Delete item in the Admin left Panel.
Plugins	`Settings`	Allows the admin role to view the Soft Delete plugin settings.

📦 Compatibility

Strapi Version	Plugin Version
^4.11	1.0.0
^3	Not Supported

This plugin is designed for Strapi v4 and will not work with v3.x.

🚨 Caveats

Because of the way the plugin handles soft deleted entries, there are some caveats to be aware of:

Lifecycle hooks:
- beforeDelete, afterDelete, beforeDeleteMany and afterDeleteMany lifecycle hooks are not triggered when soft deleting entries. Instead, the beforeUpdate, afterUpdate, beforeUpdateMany and afterUpdateMany are.
- beforeDelete, afterDelete, beforeDeleteMany and afterDeleteMany lifecycle hooks are triggered when permanently deleting entries.

⏳ Installation

To install this plugin, you need to add an NPM dependency to your Strapi application:

# Using Yarn
yarn add strapi-plugin-soft-delete

# Or using PNPM
pnpm add strapi-plugin-soft-delete

# Or using NPM
npm install strapi-plugin-soft-delete

Edit your config/plugins.js|ts or config/<env>/plugins.js|ts file and add the following configuration:

// ...
  "soft-delete": {
    enabled: true,
  },
// ...

Then, you'll need to build your admin panel:

# Using Yarn
yarn build

# Or using PNPM
pnpm run build

# Or using NPM
npm run build

Finally, start your application:

# Using Yarn
yarn develop

# Or using PNPM
pnpm run develop

# Or using NPM
npm run develop

🤝 Contributing

Feel free to fork and make a PR if you want to add something or fix a bug.

🛣️ Roadmap

🖧 Server
- _softDeletedAt field on API Content Types
- _softDeletedById field on API Content Types
- _softDeletedByType field on API Content Types
- Decorate Content Type Entity Services to handle _softDeleted* fields when deleting an entry upon delete or deleteMany methods
- Decorate Content Type Entity Services to hide entries upon find or findMany methods
- RBAC Permissions
- Admin Routes
- Single Type entry restore special case
- Draft & Publish support when restoring an entry
- Audit Logs support
- Custom Lifecycle Hooks
- Handle Soft Deleting Components
- Add tests
🗂️ Soft Delete Explorer
- Content Types list
- Entries list
  - Pagination
  - Filters
- Restore action
- Delete Permanently action
- Translation
- Soft Deleted Entry details
⚙️ Plugin Settings
- Restoration Behavior
  - Single Type
  - Draft & Publish
- Deletion Automation

🚮 Uninstall

To uninstall this plugin, you need to remove the NPM dependency from your Strapi application:

# Using Yarn
yarn remove strapi-plugin-soft-delete

# Or using PNPM
pnpm remove strapi-plugin-soft-delete

# Or using NPM
npm uninstall strapi-plugin-soft-delete

Edit your config/plugins.js|ts or config/<env>/plugins.js|ts file and remove the following configuration:

// ...
  "soft-delete": {
    enabled: true,
  },
// ...

Also, if you have edited your API Content Types through the Content Builder, and because the plugin adds fields to it, you'll need to remove them from the schemas manually. The fields are:

_softDeletedAt
_softDeletedById
_softDeletedByType