Purge overview

Purge permanently deletes records from Salesforce without keeping any copy. It is bluefactory's disposal tool — built for the moments when you are required to make data truly go away.

When to use Purge

• Enforcing a data-retention limit ("delete leads older than 5 years").
• Honoring a right-to-be-forgotten obligation beyond a single record.
• Cleaning out data you no longer have a legal basis to keep.
• Removing leftover records after an archive reported records it could not delete.

Purge vs. Archive

Archive and Purge both delete records from Salesforce — but Archive keeps a verified copy and Purge keeps nothing, by design. If a regulation obliges you to erase data, an archived copy would defeat the purpose; Purge exists precisely for that case.

If you want the data out of Salesforce but still available, use Archive instead. See Backup vs. Archive vs. Purge.

Purge is irreversible

Purged records are only recoverable if a backup captured them before the purge. The pre-flight review tells you, object by object, whether the records in scope are covered by a recent backup — and warns loudly when they aren't.

Built-in safety

A purge never runs directly from the builder. Every purge goes through:

1. A saved draft — your scope is saved before anything happens.
2. A pre-flight review — live record counts, backup coverage, and relationship impacts, computed for your exact scope.
3. Explicit confirmation — you type the org's name to confirm, plus an extra acknowledgement if records in scope have never been backed up.

See Running a purge for the step-by-step guide.