Archive or delete individual or bulk classes

We recommend archiving previous year's classes and deleting previous year's declined and provisioned classes to better organize and declutter your explorer. To accomplish this, you can change the classroom state on classes you've selected in Google Classroom Explorer or perform a bulk classroom cleanup on all classes. Classroom cleanup stepper helps you identify ACTIVE classes you can archive and PROVISIONED or DECLINED classes you can delete by date, school, or teacher.

What happens to an archived class?

• Archiving a class removes it from teachers’ and students’ Classroom homepage. The class moves to a separate area to preserve class materials, student work, and posts. 
• Teachers and students can still view an archived class. To use the class again, the teacher can restore it.
• Teachers and students can access class materials for an archived class within the Google Drive folder.
• Students can’t unenroll from an archived class.
• Google Calendar retains the class calendar for teachers and students. Users can remove the calendar from view or permanently delete it.
• An archived class stays in Google Classroom unless the primary teacher deletes it. 

What happens to a deleted class?

• Deleting a class removes it from Google Classroom. You can’t restore a deleted class.
• Teachers and students can no longer access class posts or comments. Assignment grades are lost.

Timing of archiving and deleting classes

Because of what happens to classes, the timing of your archival or deletion is important. You don’t want to archive or delete classes that are still in session. The best time to archive classes is after teachers have finished submitting grades for the semester.

What you’ll learn

In this article, you’ll learn how to:

• Archive a set of classes
• Delete a set of classes
• Bulk archive classes
• Bulk delete classes

Archiving a set of classes

To archive a small set of ACTIVE classes:

1. Click (Explorer) from the menu on the left side of the screen. Google Classroom Explorer opens.
2. Filter the State column to include only ACTIVE classes.
3. Select the classes you want to archive.
4. Click Bulk Actions at the top of the Explorer grid.
5. Click Change classroom state.
6. Click Archive Selected classes.
   
7. Confirm classes you want to archive by selecting the class again.
8. Click Continue.
9. You can choose to notify the primary teacher that their class has been archived.
10. Click Continue.
11. Review the changes that will be made.
12. Click Proceed.

Deleting a set of classes

Warning: There is no way to undo deleting a class. Proceed carefully when using this function.

To delete a small set of PROVISIONED or DECLINED classes:

1. Click (Explorer) from the menu on the left side of the screen. Google Classroom Explorer opens.
2. Filter the State column to include only PROVISIONED and> DECLINED classes.
3. Select the classes you want to delete.
4. Click Bulk Actions at the top of the Explorer grid.
5. Click Change classroom state.
6. Click Delete Selected classes.
   
7. Confirm classes you want to delete by selecting the class again.
8. Click Continue.
9. Review the changes that will be made.
10. Click Proceed.

Bulk archiving classes

To identify and archive ACTIVE classes:

1. Click (Explorer) from the menu on the left side of the screen. Google Classroom Explorer opens.
2. Click Bulk Actions> at the top of the Explorer grid.
3. Click Bulk classroom cleanup.
4. Click Bulk archive classes. The Bulk classroom cleanup wizard opens.
   
5. Enter a date to find ACTIVE classes that were created on or before that date.
6. You can also find classes by school or teacher email.
   • Select a school from the drop-down to limit classes to only a specific school. You can select more than one school.
   • Type or paste emails for teachers to limit classes to those specific teachers. Type or paste each on a new line. If you are limiting by teachers, click Validate to validate their email.
7. Click Continue.
8. Confirm classes you want to archive by selecting the class.
9. Click Continue.
10. You can choose to notify the primary teacher that their class has been archived and customize the message.
11. Click Continue.
12. The wizard indicates the number of classes you are about to archive. Enter that number in the Number of classes to be archived field.
13. Click Archive.

Bulk deleting classes

Warning: There is no way to undo deleting a class. Proceed carefully when using this function.

To identify and delete a PROVISIONED or DECLINED classes:

1. Click (Explorer) from the menu on the left side of the screen. Google Classroom Explorer opens.
2. Click Bulk Actions at the top of the Explorer grid.
3. Click Bulk classroom cleanup.
4. Click Bulk delete classes. The Bulk classroom cleanup wizard opens.
   
5. Enter a date to find PROVISIONED or DECLINED classes that were created before that date.
6. You can also find classes by school, or teacher email.
   • Select a school from the drop-down to limit classes to only a specific school. You can select more than one school.
   • Type or paste emails for teachers to limit classes to those specific teachers. Type or paste each on a new line. If you are limiting by teachers, click Validate to validate their email.
7. Click Continue.
8. Confirm classes you want to delete by selecting the class.
9. Click Continue.
10. You can choose to notify the primary teacher that their class has been deleted and customize the message.
11. Click Continue.
12. The wizard indicates the number of classes you are about to delete. Enter that number in the Number of classes to be deleted field.
13. Click Delete.