# Do unlinked files get auto-deleted?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/do-unlinked-files-get-auto-deleted/92215
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [July 12, 2018, 10:55pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/do-unlinked-files-get-auto-deleted/92215 "2018-07-12T22:55:15Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ChameleonScales](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ChameleonScales)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2018, 10:55pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/do-unlinked-files-get-auto-deleted/92215/1 "2018-07-12T22:55:15Z")
Say I drop an image in a post and some time later I decide to remove it by editing the post and erasing the markdown image link.
- Does the file get deleted from the server after some time?
- If not, is there any way I can do that manually as a regular user?
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2018, 11:54pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/do-unlinked-files-get-auto-deleted/92215/2 "2018-07-12T23:54:34Z")
> [@ChameleonScales](#):
>
> - Does the file get deleted from the server after some time?
Yes it does… look in site settings:
`clean up uploads`: default true
Remove orphan unreferenced uploads to prevent illegal hosting. WARNING: you may want to back up of your /uploads directory before enabling this setting.
`clean orphan uploads grace period hours` : default 48
Grace period (in hours) before an orphan upload is removed.
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### Author:  [@ChameleonScales](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ChameleonScales)
#### Post date: [July 13, 2018, 3:46am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/do-unlinked-files-get-auto-deleted/92215/3 "2018-07-13T03:46:28Z")
Great, that’s reassuring.
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### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2018, 3:46am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/do-unlinked-files-get-auto-deleted/92215/4 "2018-08-12T03:46:31Z")
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