AB Projects keeps your data until you delete it — nothing is purged on a timer. The part people get wrong is the other direction: deleting a task is permanent. There is no recycle bin and no undo.
What is kept, and for how long
- No automatic purge. Tasks, projects, comments, and documents are retained until someone deletes them.
- Change history is preserved. Every task keeps a record of field changes — who changed what, when, old → new — and all comments, and the linked Teams channel keeps its own timestamped record of posted task cards.
- Removing people or projects keeps history intact. When a member is removed or a project is deleted, the record is flagged as deleted rather than physically erased right away, so past comments and changes stay correctly attributed.
- Deleting a task is the exception — it is removed permanently at the moment you delete it (see the callout above).
Quick reference: what deleting actually does
| You delete… | What happens | Recoverable? |
|---|---|---|
| A task | Removed immediately, including its description and history | No |
| A project | Flagged as deleted and hidden; underlying records retained | Ask support |
| A member (removed from the project) | Membership is flagged; their past comments and changes stay attributed | Re-add anytime — see Adding or Removing Members |
| Your organization's data | Deleted on request — contact support | No, once processed |
Where your data lives
All AB Projects data is stored on Microsoft Azure (Microsoft's cloud platform), hosted in the Japan East region. Each AB product keeps its own separate data store — AB Projects, AB Sales, and AB Support cannot read each other's records, even for the same organization. For data-residency or compliance requirements beyond this, see Confidentiality and Enterprise Agreements.
Getting your data out
To be honest about today's limits: AB Projects has no self-serve export — no CSV download, report export, or change-log export (see Exporting Reports and Project Data for the full picture and current workarounds). What you can do today:
- Read everything in the List, Gantt, and Kanban views and the per-task change history.
- Query your data programmatically through a connected AI assistant — see Connecting AI Assistants via MCP.
- For an audit, migration, or compliance export, contact our support team — exports are handled as a manual request.
In short: your data stays until you delete it, most deletions are reversible with help — but a deleted task is gone, so treat that button with respect.