# Archiving and deleting

Sessions and the board are in [Sessions and the board](/docs/sessions-and-board/).

- **Archive** removes a session from the board and keeps its conversation: **Reopen** picks it up
  again. **Delete** is for a session you don't need anymore: its conversation goes. Each asks first,
  in one dialog that shows only what applies, and every question in it comes before anything stops,
  so **Cancel** leaves the agent and its terminals running.
- The dialog says what stops: the agent, and anything waiting in its queue (see
  [What waits for the turn's end](/docs/sessions-composer/#what-waits-for-the-turns-end)), any
  background tasks, any files whose unsaved edits will be lost, and any of the session's terminals
  that will end, with what runs in each (see [The terminal](/docs/terminal/)). While another session
  works in its folder, or a project you added holds the folder, it says its terminals keep running
  instead, naming the project.
- For a session with a worktree of its own, the dialog also asks what goes with it: its uncommitted
  changes, the worktree, its branch and the branch on its remote, each a box of its own that says
  what it loses, and its button names every loss it takes, such as discarding 3 changes (see
  [Worktrees](/docs/worktrees/#archiving)). Nothing that loses work is ticked for you. A
  session in your main checkout or a plain folder touches nothing in git.
- If something changes while the dialog asks, such as the agent leaving more uncommitted changes, it
  shows again with what's there now. Only what the archive runs into after that refuses it, as git
  failing to remove the worktree: the session then stays, and its terminal tabs come back as fresh
  shells.
- **Delete** deletes a session from Moontors' database, and overwrites the space it took there, so
  its text doesn't linger in the file. Where the agent lets Moontors, the agent's own copy of the
  conversation goes too. Its dialog says whether the agent's copy goes, and that it can't be undone.
  With Gemini CLI, it also says that Gemini CLI keeps your prompts in its project's own log. What
  else may still hold the session, such as the backup from the latest update, is in the
  [Privacy Policy](/policies/privacy/). Where the worktree stays, the dialog says Moontors no
  longer tracks it, and where its branch alone stays, that it stays. If the agent then fails to
  delete its own copy, the session stays archived, and **Delete from Moontors only** removes the
  transcript and leaves the agent's copy. If git couldn't delete the remote branch you ticked, the
  session stays archived too, saying why, and its button then deletes the session, keeping that
  branch.
- **Archived**, the box in the header, shows the archived sessions of every project in the board's
  place, newest first. Each shows its project, agent and when it was archived, and what its archive
  left: "Worktree kept at" its path, and a remote branch git couldn't delete, with git's reason and
  **Retry**. From there, **Read** its transcript, **Reopen** it onto the board, open in the panel,
  or **Delete** it, in the same dialog as Delete, offering only what the archive left: a worktree it
  kept, its branch and the branch on its remote. While reading, **Back to the list** or Escape
  returns to the list.
- Right after an update, **Archive**, **Delete** and Archived's **Reopen** and **Delete** wait until
  the new version's background service has taken over, and say so.
- Reopening puts the session back at the top of its section, or of the board if its section is gone.
  A worktree its archive kept is used as it is. Otherwise a worktree session's worktree is made
  again from its branch, or at its commit for one with no branch, or taken as it is if another
  session still uses it. If the branch or that commit is gone, or the branch's name now belongs to
  another branch, the session reopens in the same folder of your main checkout, without a worktree
  of its own, and says so. If anything else stops it, such as the branch being checked out in your
  main checkout, or its folder being gone, it stays archived and says why on its row, until you do
  anything else in the list. A transcript that can't be read says why in its own read view.
- `/archive` and `/delete` do the same as the buttons.