Archiving vs. deleting projects

When a project is finished you have two options that behave very differently: archiving tucks it away and keeps everything, while deleting permanently destroys the project and everything attached to it. There is no undo in TimeBill, so knowing the difference matters.

Archiving a project

1. Open the project and click Archive in the footer bar, or right-click the project in the sidebar and choose Archive.
2. The project moves from the Active section to the Archived section of the sidebar. Nothing is deleted: all tasks, time entries, and cost items stay intact.
3. To bring it back, click Unarchive in the footer (the same button, relabeled) or right-click and choose Activate.

What changes while a project is archived:

• It no longer shows deadline-urgency colors.
• It doesn't count toward the Dashboard's Active Projects stat.
• It stays searchable and appears in filtered views.
• Free plan caution: archived projects still count toward the 10-project limit. Archiving does not free a slot; only deleting does. See Can't create a new project or task.

Deleting a project

Deleting is permanent: the project's tasks, time entries, and cost items are all destroyed, and there is no undo. Your exported invoices are the one exception: archived invoices are kept as standalone financial records and stay in the Invoice Vault under a No Project group, even if the delete confirmation suggests otherwise.

1. Open the project and click the trash button in the toolbar, or right-click it in the sidebar and choose Delete Project.
2. In the Delete Project? dialog, click Delete.

The dialog also offers Delete and Don't Ask Again, which suppresses this confirmation for all future project deletions. We recommend leaving the confirmation on. With no undo, it's your last line of defense.

Before you delete: keep a copy

• Export the project's data: with the project selected in the sidebar, choose File → Export → Project Export → Export Selected Project to save a JSON file that TimeBill can import again later via File → Import Project.... (A CSV for Bill export also exists, but only JSON can be re-imported.)
• Save the invoices: the projects JSON export does not include the Invoice Vault. The project's archived invoices survive deletion (they move to the vault's No Project group), but it's still smart to export file copies from the Invoice Vault, since a re-imported JSON cannot restore vault records.

More on export formats in Exporting your data. And if you've already deleted something by accident, see Can I recover deleted data?