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This version of GitHub Enterprise was discontinued on 2023-03-15. No patch releases will be made, even for critical security issues. For better performance, improved security, and new features, upgrade to the latest version of GitHub Enterprise. For help with the upgrade, contact GitHub Enterprise support.

Restoring a deleted repository

In this article

You can restore deleted repositories to recover their contents.

Who can use this feature

Enterprise owners can restore a deleted repository.

About repository restoration

Usually, if someone deletes a repository, it will be available on disk for 90 days and can be restored via the site admin dashboard. For more information, see "Site admin dashboard."

Unless a legal hold is in effect on a user or organization, after 90 days the repository is purged and deleted forever.

If a repository was part of a fork network when it was deleted, the restored repository will be detached from the original fork network.

It can take up to an hour after a repository is deleted before that repository is available for restoration.

Restoring a repository will not restore release attachments or team permissions. Issues that are restored will not be labeled.

Restoring a deleted repository

  1. From an administrative account on GitHub Enterprise Server, in the upper-right corner of any page, click .
  2. If you're not already on the "Site admin" page, in the upper-left corner, click Site admin.
  3. Under "Search users, organizations, teams, repositories, gists, and applications", type the name of the user or organization in the text field. Then to the right of the field, click Search. Screenshot of the "Search" page of the "Site admin" settings. The button to search users and organizations, labeled "Search," is highlighted with an orange outline.
  4. In the search results, click the name of the user or organization. Screenshot of the "Accounts" search results. In the list of matches, "user1" is highlighted with an orange outline.
  5. In the Repositories section, click the Deleted repositories link.
  6. Find the repository you want to restore in the deleted repositories list, then to the right of the repository name click Restore.
  7. To confirm you would like to restore the named repository, click Restore.

Further reading