Learn how data retention works in Harvey, including how the Workspace Retention Period applies to your active workspace, which features follow their own retention timelines, and what happens to your data if your agreement with Harvey ends.
Last updated: Sep 3, 2026
Overview
At Harvey, we prioritize giving customers control over their own data. That's why organizations can set a Workspace Retention Period for their workspace data.
This article explains what a Workspace Retention Period is, how it applies to your active workspace, which features follow their own retention timelines, and what happens to your data if your agreement with Harvey ends.
What is a Workspace Retention Period?
Your organization’s Workspace Retention Period is the amount of time your users’ queries and related data is retained in Harvey before it's automatically deleted. Your Workspace Retention Period can be set anywhere from 3 hours after a query is first processed by Harvey to indefinite.
Retention is measured from each query's creation date and does not reset when a query is updated. Once your workspace reaches its configured retention limit, content is securely and permanently removed from Harvey's systems, unless the feature has an independent data retention timeline as described in the table below.
Note: Query history only covers data that remains available based on your organization’s configured retention period.
Features with Independent Data Retention Timelines
Some Harvey features have data retention periods that differ from your organization’s workspace retention period.
With the exception of Vault, the features in the table below retain data for continued use until manually deleted by the applicable user(s) (i.e., admins, creators, editors) or until full workspace deletion has been requested.
Feature
Retention
Why It's Different
Vaults
Admins can configure Vault Retention separately from Workspace Retention, from a minimum of 3 hours to indefinite, measured from the vault's creation date or last activity date.
Vaults auto-delete at the end of the period unless deleted sooner.
Vault is the only feature whose retention can be configured separately from workspace retention.
Flexible Vault retention lets you keep important work on its own timeline, preventing accidental loss.
The key/value (KV) tensors — the numerical "memory" the model produces during the first tokens of a prompt — may be stored for up to 24 hours, depending on the model provider.
Key/value tensors are stored so subsequent, similar prompts can skip the costly pre-fill step.
Memory
Retained indefinitely while your workspace is active, unless an admin or authorized user deletes them.
No separate retention period configurable by admins
Enables personalized experiences to users on an ongoing basis.
Models and Prompt Caching
Harvey continues to enhance its offerings as its LLM partners develop and launch new AI models. To stay up to speed on the models Harvey evaluates and deploys, see What AI Models Does Harvey Use, which covers Harvey's model evaluation process and a comparison of current models.
For more on how Harvey approaches prompt caching as these models evolve, see our Prompt Caching overview.
Workspace Deletion
Regardless of the retention period you choose, all data is permanently deleted 30 days after your workspace's agreement with Harvey ends.
FAQs
The default retention period for an active workspace depends on how your workspace was configured by your admin(s) (for example, during your pilot). In most cases the default workspace retention period is indefinite.
Vault retention overrides workspace retention in this context. Any query in Assistant, a Workflow, or elsewhere that is linked to or stored in a Vault project follows the applicable Vault’s retention period.
A Review Table built from a Vault project will follow that Vault’s retention period.
If your Workspace Retention is set to 3 hours (0 days), thread history and saved examples may not be available in your workspace. Please check with your admin to confirm your organization’s workspace history settings, and keep those settings in mind when sharing threads with others.
Most queries or files deleted by admin-configured retention periods are not recoverable by Harvey.
When an entire vault is deleted via a configured vault retention period, it moves to the Recycle Bin, where it remains for 30 days before being permanently deleted; a workspace admin can restore it any time within that window (see Managing Vaults). Vaults containing files added through DMS sync or DMS upload cannot be recovered.
If unsure about recoverability, submit a ticket to Harvey’s support team.