Question
What is the difference between a soft delete and a hard delete?
Answer
This depends on what is being deleted, there are differences in this for Tickets and Users.
Tickets
Soft delete a ticket
Soft deleting an item deletes the item such that it is not visible to any users, including admins using either the product interface or the API. The item is still in the Zendesk database and accessible by Zendesk on a limited basis only to its employees with certain database privileges.
Hard delete, permanently delete, scrub a ticket
Hard deleting or scrubbing an item permanently deletes the item. The item is completely removed from the Zendesk database. No one, including Zendesk employees with database privileges, can access the item any longer.
Soft deleted tickets are moved into a Deleted Tickets view for 30 days, where you can restore them or permanently delete them. After 30 days they are automatically permanently deleted.
Users
Soft delete a user
A soft deleted user, is no longer visible for agents. And cannot be recovered, only deleted or approachable via the API.
Email address and phone number are removed during this action.
Hard delete, permanently delete, scrub a user
Hard deleting or scrubbing an item permanently deletes the item. The item is completely removed from the Zendesk database. No one, including Zendesk employees with database privileges, can access the item any longer.