Moodle Educators – Use the Recycle Bin feature to retrieve accidently deleted course elements

Moodle LMS being one of the most popular open source Learning Management System is packed with features. There are many features which are not actively used among the Moodle users. One such feature is the ability to restore course elements which are accidently deleted by teachers. The feature known as ‘Recycle Bin’ was funded by Moodle Users Association in Moodle core.

Recycle Bin allows not only to restore the deleted course items, it also allows you to restore accidently deleted courses. If deleted items are not needed, they are automatically permanently deleted after a specific days interval. In this post, we will show you how you can use the Recycle Bin feature in Moodle.

Moodle’s Recycle Bin

Before you can use it, The recycle bin feature has to be enabled by the Site Administrator. As a Moodle Administrator, you can navigate to Site administration / Plugins / Admin tools to enable the Recycle Bin feature. You can also set how long an item or a course will remain available until it is permanently deleted.

Caution – Automated backup settings in Site administration / Courses / Backups / Automated backup setup are also used for the recycle bin. To include the User Data in the Recycle Bin, you need to make sure to enable ‘backup_auto_users’ and ‘restore_general_users’ settings.

How to restore an activity from Recycle Bin

Before deleting any activity, Moodle make sure to show a warning screen. Once a teacher deletes the course items by mistake, she can restore the same through the Recycle Bin.

The link to Recycle Bin will appear under Course Navigation > More. (The period for appearing depend on your Moodle Cron schedule. It can vary from a few minutes to few hours also depending on your Administrator).

Once you see the recycle link, you can click the Restore link against the course item to restore it back into the course.

Similarly you can restore the deleted course through the course categories actions menu. Here is a useful video showing how you can use the Recycle Bin feature in Moodle:

What are the other handy tips which you would like to share with other Moodle users around the world. Please share with us in the comments section below.