How to edit or delete your item
Editing items
You can edit private items as you wish. You can also edit public items. Depending on what you change in a public item, the item will be versioned but the DOI will stay the same. Figshare supports version control of all publicly available data. For more on versioning, see the versioning section of this guide.
To edit an item head to ‘My content’, find the item you want to update, then click ‘Edit’. This will open a new tab where you can edit the metadata fields and add additional files to the item.
Editing files
At the top of the edit item page, click on the ‘Manage files’ link in the file section (top of the page):
A pop up will show options to manage files. Clicking the three dots reveals the delete option for the existing file. Deleted files will stay available to you for 30 days. On this screen you can also add more files or reorder existing ones.
Click ‘Save changes’ to save your revisions privately, or click ‘Publish’ or ‘Submit for review’ (if using your institution’s repository) to save and publish the new version. At institutions, the new version will go through a review process prior to the new version of the item becoming available publicly.
Editing metadata
Once you’ve opened the item page you can edit most of the metadata that is part of the item. Public items will have fewer editable fields. For example, if you are editing a public item, you cannot add an embargo.
Saving your changes will not make the changes public. You must click ‘Publish’ (or ‘Submit for review’ if you are using your institution’s repository).
Deleting items
Please note that you can only delete items that are private or have an embargo applied.
Delete a public item: If you need to delete a public item, this must be done by Figshare if using a free account or your institutional administrator if you are using your institution’s Figshare repository. Please see the section in this guide about accidentally setting data to public for more information.
Delete a private item: If you wish to delete the entire private item you can do so by clicking the ‘Delete item’ text on the right side of the metadata entry page. Please note that you cannot reverse this procedure! Note, the image below shows what the Item Actions menu with ‘Delete item’ option will look like with the Item Type Based Metadata release.
