Canvas courses are automatically deleted five years after the end of the academic year (considered to be June) in which the course section was offered. Items that instructors or students have contributed to a course, including assignments, grades, discussion posts, and uploaded files, will be deleted when the course is deleted. 

Expiring courses will be permanently deleted from the vendor's servers within twelve months of expiration, after which point they are no longer recoverable. For example, a course offered in autumn quarter 2020 will expire in June of 2026, and be deleted by June of 2027. 

The data retention policy is separate from the Canvas Access Policy, which specifies which accounts can sign in to Canvas and Panopto, and when separating individuals lose access. 

How can I determine when my course will be deleted?

Expiration dates for courses are viewable in the Canvas All Courses page, which can be found by selecting Courses > All Courses from the Canvas global navigation menu. UWIT recommends that instructors review expiring courses and archive any needed content, such as course files, videos, assignments, and quizzes.

Can deleted courses be restored?

An automatically deleted course can be restored for up to twelve months after deletion, at which point it will be fully removed from the vendor's servers. Courses deleted more than twelve months ago will not be recovered.

If you need a recently deleted course to be restored, contact help@uw.edu. Please provide the course code, section, and quarter offered, the former URL of the course if available.

The name of my old Canvas course includes the word "ARCHIVED." Why? What does it mean?

On March 25, 2026, the word "ARCHIVED" was added automatically to the beginning of the name of any Canvas course site that was automatically created for a UW course offered Winter 2026 or earlier. No manually created courses are impacted.

This is just a label, not a change to course settings or access permissions. It exclusively impacts how course names and codes appear.

The ARCHIVED label is intended to denote Canvas courses that are no longer in active use by the time new accessibility policies go into effect on April 24, 2026. Content that meets all four of the following points is considered archived web content and does not need to meet updated web accessibility requirements:

1. The content was created before April 24, 2026, or reproduces documents or the contents of other physical media that were created before the government must comply with this rule, AND
2. The content is kept only for reference, research, or recordkeeping, AND
3. The content is kept in a special area for archived content, AND
4. The content has not been changed since it was archived.

Courses not meeting ALL of the criteria above are required to meet the new UW Minimum Digital Accessibility Technical Standard to align with UW's web accessibility requirements.  This is a one-time change that will not be applied to future quarters. If a course offered prior to Spring 2026 will continue to be used by students after this date or will otherwise fall outside of the criteria above, an instructor or administrator can edit the Canvas course name to remove the “ARCHIVED” label. 

Imported Content

Many instructors import content from previous courses as they start setting up new Canvas course sites. Please note that any content imported from an archived course into a current or future course will need to comply with the UW Minimum Digital Accessibility Technical Standard. Also, keep in mind that depending on your import method, the course name may be overwritten to include this "ARCHIVED" label. We advise that you edit these course titles after importing to avoid potential confusion.