# Delete files and folders

Deleting removes a file, or a folder and every file in it, from a brain. Like every change, it's recorded with who made it.

## Delete a file or folder

1. Go to **Knowledge** and open the brain.
2. In the list on the left, hover over the file or folder and select the bin icon. For the file you have open, you can also select **Delete** at the bottom of the page, beside **Edit**.
3. Check what will be removed, then select **Delete**.

The file or folder leaves the list, and you see what was removed, such as "Deleted notes/ and the 3 files in it." If you deleted the file you were reading, you're taken to the brain's front page.

## When a delete is sent for approval

Some deletes wait for a person to approve them, the same way a save does:

- On the **Draft** role, every delete is sent for approval. The button in the dialog reads **Send for approval**.
- In a protected folder, such as `ground-truth/`, a delete happens straight away only if your role can approve. Otherwise it's sent for approval.

Nothing is removed until someone approves it. You'll find it under **Proposals**, with a link from the message you see after deleting. See [Review and approve proposals](/brains/review-proposals).

## Delete with the assistant

You can ask the assistant to delete a file or folder in a chat. It asks you to approve each delete in the chat first, and nothing is removed until you do. After that, the rules above apply: it happens straight away, or it's sent for approval.

Anywhere else, a delete is always sent for approval. That covers an agent working through a connection, such as Claude, Cursor or another AI app, a question asked in Slack, and a routine. It also covers an agent deleting from a brain other than the one it's working in.

## What can't be deleted

Some files are there so a brain works as it should. Nobody can delete these, whatever their role:

- the brain's settings in `.brain/`, and any file or folder whose name starts with a dot
- the brain's agent instructions: `AGENTS.md` or `CLAUDE.md` at the top of the brain
- YAML files (`.yml` and `.yaml`)
- the `ground-truth/` and `routines/` folders as a whole, and the `README.md` in each. You can delete the other files in them.
- the org-wide brain's `skills/` folder as a whole

A folder that holds any of these can't be deleted as a whole either. The message names the files that have to stay, so you can delete the others one at a time. A folder's empty placeholder file, `.gitkeep`, goes with its folder.

As of 2026-10-15, one delete removes up to 500 files. To delete a bigger folder, delete its subfolders first.