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I still remember asking some questions on Stack Overflow which were very difficult to figure out. They were left unanswered, and after a couple of months, I decided to delete them (deleted for good??). I also deleted them because I wasn't using the technology anymore.

But after reading some articles on the internet concerning the technology. I found the solution to my problem (which I deleted months ago). I know how to explain the problem in detail and the solution. Now I need to know if it's possible to un-delete the question. Do I just have to contact Stack Overflow? I think this could be an idea for a new feature in Stack Overflow.

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  • You can always ask the question again, with an answer (That's what the "Answer your own question" checkbox is for).
    – Oded StaffMod
    Commented Dec 27, 2013 at 9:49
  • I prefer updating the old description of my problem where necessary.
    – Tassisto
    Commented Dec 27, 2013 at 10:48
  • Note: Refer to this answer in the duplicate linked above.
    – Justin
    Commented Apr 16, 2022 at 14:38

3 Answers 3

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You can see recent posts that have been deleted in your user profile, note the link at the bottom of this page, which turns up two questions.

If those are questions you'd like to restore, you can undelete them or flag for a moderator to help you undelete them if something is preventing you from doing so.

Otherwise, contact us and let us know what questions you'd like restored, please indicate that they're out of the scope of recently deleted and you simply can't find them any longer. Give us the titles, tags, anything that would help us locate them for you, and we'll see what we can do.

Currently, showing a somewhat brief glimpse into deleted content is the compromise between not showing it at all, or letting users see a wall of deleted stuff if they choose to do so. Even though we have 'soft' deletions, where nothing is typically purged from the database itself, we do reinforce the notion that some stuff is simply never coming back, and should be forgotten about for any practical purpose.

I liked the idea of a special search modifier that would let you find specific deleted posts by your User ID and search terms, which would come in really handy for cases like this. After the holidays, I'm going to get a proper proposal for that here to be discussed. This won't show you anything other that something you're specifically trying to find, so it doesn't have the drawbacks associated with letting you simply get at all deleted content.

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You can try to find deleted questions:

  • in your profile under the questions tab at the bottom: Deleted questions
  • in your browser history
  • in google cache
  • ask a moderator to undelete a specific question of yours
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UPDATE 2022:

You can now view all your deleted posts.

  1. Go to your profile page.

  2. Go to the "Questions" subtab.

    enter image description here

  3. Scroll the questions list all the way down and you'll see an option to view all your deleted questions.

    enter image description here

The same is possible for deleted answers.

Another way is to replace everything after the domain name (in the search bar) with /users/deleted-questions/current (for questions) or /users/deleted-answers/current (for answers).

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