Use archiving to keep your sidebar organized, deletion to permanently remove data, and automatic deletion to apply a retention period to your encounters.
Archiving
Archiving hides notes and standalone chats from your active sidebar without permanently deleting them. Archived encounters still follow your automatic deletion settings.
Archive an item
Single note or chat: Hover over the item in the left sidebar, open its menu, and choose Archive.
Entire date group: Hover over a date heading, such as Today or Yesterday, open its menu, and choose Archive.
Restore an archived item
Open Settings at the bottom of the left sidebar.
Under Security & data, select Archived.
Select Unarchive beside the note or chat you want to restore.
Restored items appear in your sidebar again.
Deleting
Deletion is permanent. Deleted items cannot be restored from Archived. Choose the option below for the data you want to remove.
Delete a sidebar encounter, chat, or date group
Single encounter or chat: Open the item's menu in the left sidebar and choose Delete. Deleting an encounter removes all notes associated with that encounter; it does not delete only the note tab you are viewing.
Entire date group: Open the date group's menu and choose Delete. This deletes every item in that group, not just one encounter.
Stop any recording in progress before deleting from the sidebar.
Delete all archived items
Open Settings > Archived and choose Delete all archived to permanently remove your archived notes and chats.
Delete a patient record
From the Patients page, delete the patient profile and confirm the action. This also removes that patient's associated encounters and notes.
Clear encounters, chats, and uploads
Open Settings at the bottom of the left sidebar.
Under Security & data, select Data retention.
Select Clear Encounters, Chats & Uploads.
This is an account-wide clearing action: it removes your encounters, generated notes, chats, messages, and uploaded files. It is not a substitute for deleting one item or one date group.
Do not clear data to troubleshoot a missing encounter, a sync problem, or a failed recording. Contact Vero Support first.
Automatic deletion
Automatic deletion permanently removes encounters older than a retention period you choose. When enabled, it applies to both active and archived encounters, including their notes.
Set your retention period
Open Settings at the bottom of the left sidebar.
Under Security & data, select Data retention.
Turn on Automatically delete encounters.
Choose a timeframe between 1 and 365 days.
The period is measured from the encounter's creation date. Encounters older than this period are eligible for permanent deletion during scheduled cleanup.
Frequently asked questions
Can Support investigate a deleted or missing encounter?
Deleted items have no in-app restore option and do not appear in Archived. If work is unexpectedly missing or you deleted the wrong item, stop deleting or clearing data and ask Support to investigate in your current conversation. Support can check what remains available, but recovery is not guaranteed. See Finding a Missing Encounter.
Does encounter deletion remove saved Learnings?
No. Learned examples are stored separately. Remove unwanted examples through Learn → View Learned; do not assume encounter retention removes them or anonymizes their contents. See Learnings.
Do archived notes auto-delete?
Yes, if Automatically delete encounters is enabled and their encounter is older than the selected retention period. Archiving alone does not trigger deletion or reset the period. If automatic deletion is disabled, this scheduled encounter cleanup does not run for your account.
Why am I no longer asked to confirm sidebar deletions?
The sidebar deletion dialog includes Never show me this again. Selecting it skips that confirmation for future sidebar deletions.
What happens to recording audio and uploaded audio files?
Vero streams live encounter audio for transcription and does not retain the raw live recording after processing. Audio files you intentionally upload remain attached to the encounter until you remove them or the encounter is deleted.