# Pause collection or erase company data

Canonical HTML: [https://collty.com/help/security/erase-company-memory](https://collty.com/help/security/erase-company-memory)
Audience: Company owners
Reading time: 7 min
Updated: 2026-10-08T00:00:00.000Z

Choose between clearing accumulated memory and removing company-owned work, review the exact scope and understand what remains.

## Choose the intended scope

Both options remove scoped project source grants and leave collection paused. Existing operational execution history and private learner progress are not treated as company-memory records. Required accounting identity records may remain.

| Option | Removed | Preserved |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Clear memory | Source-linked company memory, scoped AI traces and evaluations, cached observations and delayed memory writes. | Projects, tasks, processes, teams and operational work remain. |
| Erase workspace data | The memory scope above, plus company-owned projects, tasks, process models, agents and team knowledge. | Personal accounts, subscriptions, accounting records and work belonging to other companies are outside this erasure scope. |

## Review and confirm erasure

1. **Open Controls:** Go to My Account → Privacy & data → Manage company knowledge. Select the company and open Controls.
2. **Select Clear memory or Erase workspace data:** Choose based on whether the underlying work must remain. Read the explanation before continuing.
3. **Review erasure scope:** The server prepares a scope-bound preview showing what will be removed and what will be retained. Review the counts and the selected company.
4. **Type the company name:** Enter the company name exactly as requested, then use Permanently erase this scope. This is an irreversible data operation.
5. **Read the result:** Database erasure is transactional. If file cleanup is pending, the encrypted cleanup queue retries storage deletion after the transaction; pending cleanup does not mean every file has already been removed.

> **Good to know:** The preview expires after ten minutes and is bound to the owner, company, mode and scope. A changed or expired preview must be reviewed again.

## Resolve shared work before removing it

Erase workspace data is refused when a company-owned team still serves another company’s projects. Detach those assignments first; another company’s working team must not disappear through this erasure.

Client participation in a supplier-owned project does not make the supplier’s memory yours to export or erase. Changing the selected company cannot bypass ownership checks.

## Understand what this does not erase

After erasure, collection stays paused. Resume deliberately only if you want new permitted knowledge to accumulate. Resuming does not restore erased records.

- Personal user accounts, subscription and required accounting records.
- Knowledge or operational records owned by other companies.
- Provider-held copies, backups or archives previously downloaded outside Collty.
- The external provider account or its own source documents.

## If the operation is blocked

- For a changed or expired scope, refresh and generate a new preview.
- For shared-team conflicts, detach the listed cross-company assignments before retrying.
- For unreadable or ambiguous stored records, contact support rather than assuming a partial erase succeeded.
- For pending storage cleanup, retain the result and report it if it does not resolve. Do not repeat destructive operations to force file deletion.

## Related guides

- [Manage Company Memory](https://collty.com/help/security/manage-company-memory)
- [Export Company Knowledge](https://collty.com/help/security/export-company-knowledge)
- [Private Workspaces And Access](https://collty.com/help/security/private-workspaces-and-access)