Title: Archive sites
Last modified: June 16, 2017

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# Archive sites

 *  [map7890](https://wordpress.org/support/users/map7890/)
 * (@map7890)
 * [8 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/archive-sites/)
 * _[ Moderator note: [moved to Networking WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/before-posting-in-everything-wordpress/?view=all).]_
 * Hi, we have a multisite setup and have some sites which have not been updated
   for a long time so would like to archive/deactivate these sites and also back
   them up along with their content.
 * I would like to know the difference between archiving and deactivating and which
   would be better in this scenario. I would also like to know how to archive/deactivate
   the sites and the best practice for doing this. I can move content to another
   server/data store if required.
 * Thanks.
 * I look forward to hearing from you.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

 *  [Nikolay Nikolov](https://wordpress.org/support/users/nnikolov/)
 * (@nnikolov)
 * [8 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/archive-sites/#post-9235799)
 * Hi.
    Both archive and deactivate are misleading. Archive does not archive any
   data, just puts the checkbox on Archived, which is visible when you edit a site.
   Deactivate does not deactivate anything, it puts the checkbox on deleted, which
   is visible when you edit a site. In both cases the site becomes inaccessible 
   to everyone but the super admin. You are pretty much deleting the site in both
   cases with an option to easily reverse the deletion.
 *  Thread Starter [map7890](https://wordpress.org/support/users/map7890/)
 * (@map7890)
 * [8 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/archive-sites/#post-9245208)
 * Thanks nnikolov. To free up space on our server, I was thinking of archiving/
   deactivating old sites and then copying the folders containing all the blog data
   to another server or file store?
 * Would this be the correct way to do it or is there a better way to do this?
 * Also, do I need to do anything with the database?
 *  [Nikolay Nikolov](https://wordpress.org/support/users/nnikolov/)
 * (@nnikolov)
 * [8 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/archive-sites/#post-9249755)
 * You want to free hard disk space? I guess you can mark them as deleted if you
   don’t mind that no one will be able to access them, including search engines 
   and you will loose your rankings. And you can then make archives of their folders
   with uploaded media files and store them somewhere and delete them from your 
   server. And when you decide to use them again you can upload them again and remove
   the mark from deleted. I don’t see any reasons for this to not work.
 * I wouldn’t touch the database, it is probably not worth the trouble. I assume
   that most of the space is taken from the files, not the database, right?
 *  Thread Starter [map7890](https://wordpress.org/support/users/map7890/)
 * (@map7890)
 * [8 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/archive-sites/#post-9251396)
 * Yes i want to free up hard disk space. Just to confirm – if I ‘delete’ a site,
   does that still keep the data?
 * I don’t mind if users don’t have access to the site, search engines or losing
   rankings. However, I would like to move the uploaded media files to another location
   and have the option to re-activate the site if required in the future.
 * Yes most of the space is taken from the files.
 *  [Nikolay Nikolov](https://wordpress.org/support/users/nnikolov/)
 * (@nnikolov)
 * [8 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/archive-sites/#post-9254420)
 * If you click **deactivate** on this page /wp-admin/network/sites.php on a site,
   it will put a checkbox on the **deleted** attribute, visible when you click **
   edit** for the same site. This is “soft” deleteion, and can be reversed.
 * If you click the red link **delete** on this page /wp-admin/network/sites.php
   on a site, it will permanently delete the site, and cannot be reversed.
 *  Thread Starter [map7890](https://wordpress.org/support/users/map7890/)
 * (@map7890)
 * [8 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/archive-sites/#post-9266319)
 * So essentially, I would want to deactivate. Then to free up space, I can manually
   move the data to another location?

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

The topic ‘Archive sites’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [deactivate](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/deactivate/)
 * [multisite](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/multisite/)
 * [Sites](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/sites/)

 * In: [Networking WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/multisite/)
 * 6 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [map7890](https://wordpress.org/support/users/map7890/)
 * Last activity: [8 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/archive-sites/#post-9266319)
 * Status: not resolved

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