Closing or deleting a study
Winding a study down is a spectrum, and only the last step is destructive. Work through it in order.
Pause new joiners: close recruitment
On your public study page, close recruitment. The study stays fully alive — existing participants keep their access, surveys keep collecting, records stay editable — but the join page stops accepting new participants and instead shows that the study isn’t recruiting (with your contact email, if set).
This is reversible at any time, and it’s the right move between recruitment waves or once your cohort is full.
Go quiet: change visibility
If you also want the study out of sight, set its visibility to Internal in study settings. It disappears from public listings; only people already in the study can see it. Combined with closed recruitment, the study is effectively sealed while you finish analysis.
Delete permanently
Deleting a study permanently removes the study and all associated data — records, responses, consent acceptances, everything, for you and for every participant. There is no undo and no grace period.
Before you delete:
- Export your records (Records → Export) and your survey responses.
- Check your data-retention obligations — ethics approvals often require keeping data for a fixed period, in which case closing recruitment is the correct end state, not deletion.
Then, in Settings → Danger zone, choose Delete this study and type DELETE to confirm. Only do this when the data has served its purpose and nothing depends on it.