GitLab Project: Archive or unarchive and delete GitLab projects

Looking to efficiently manage a GitLab project? Automate builds, integrations, and code verification with GitLab. Benefit from SAST, DAST, code quality analysis, and concurrent testing through pipelines. In this article, we shall discuss steps to “Manage a GitLab Project: How to archive or unarchive and delete GitLab projects”. Project owners and admins control archiving privileges. Here is how to import your project from Bitbucket Server or Bitbucket Cloud to GitLab.

Note: To effectively manage a GitLab Project. Once archived, your repository, issues, and more become read-only. Keep in mind, that archived projects are hidden by default, and an admin’s deletion is irreversible. So, exercise caution and seek approval before deleting a project.

Here are some related guides: How to install, register and start GitLab Runner on Windows, and how to unregister a GitLab Runner. Click here to learn more.

To efficiently manage a GitLab project, consider archiving projects that require read access but are no longer active. Archive permission is exclusive to project owners and administrators. After archiving, the repository, packages, issues, merge requests, and all other features become read-only.

Easily manage a GitLab project through the centralized Settings page. Access it from your project’s homepage, then choose Settings in the left menu to simplify configuration. Sections group settings by topic, and you can view all in a section by selecting Expand.

GitLab projects that are no longer actively used but need to be available for reading access can be archived.

Note: Only users who have the Maintainer role for the project and administrators can access project settings. You may also want to see the following guides: How to uninstall GitLab from your Windows device, How to deploy and use Windows containers with Gitlab CI, and

How to Archive GitLab Project

To archive a project, kindly follow the steps below. Access the project and click on it as shown below

Open the Project “settings”

In the project settings, click on General. Now under Advanced select, the setting “Expand”. Please Failed to remove network for build: Error during connect in the default daemon configuration on Windows, the Docker client must be run with elevated privileges.

Here you will find the item “Archive project”. There you can archive the project.

You will be asked whether you really want to archive the project.

After that the project is archived. In the project view and in the personal view you will now find indications that the project is archived

How to Unarchiving a GitLab Project

To unarchive a project, proceed in the same way as for archiving. This time, the “Unarchive Project” is selected.

Please see How to set a default app to archive files on macOS, How to Setup GitLab Runner on WSL, and Panic: Failed to register the GitLab-runner, you may be having network issues.

Delete a GitLab Project

To delete a GitLab project, click the Expand button in the Advanced section of the General Project Settings tab. The last option on the page is a red button that says Remove Project.

You can mark a project to be deleted, but you must must have at least the Owner role for a project before you can delete.

On the top bar, select Menu, and then Projects and locate the project you wish to delete. On the left sidebar, select Settings > General as shown below.

You will have to Expand the Advanced button. In the “Delete project” section, select Delete project.

You will be required to “Enter the following to conform”: This will be your project name 🙂 When you are done, click on Yes, delete project

Now you will need to confirm the action when asked to. This action will delete the project including all associated resources (issues, merge requests, etc.).

As you can see in the image below. The project and all associated resources were permanently deleted from the server.

The default deletion behavior for projects was changed to delayed project deletion in GitLab 12.6, and then to immediate deletion in GitLab 13.2.

I hope you found this blog post helpful on steps to Manage a GitLab Project: How to archive or unarchive and delete GitLab projects. If you have any questions, please let me know in the comment session.