Trash & Deletion

Lektr uses a soft delete system to protect your highlights while still allowing you to manage your library.

How Deletion Works

When you delete a highlight or book in Lektr:

1. Highlights move to Trash — they're not permanently deleted
2. You can restore highlights from Trash at any time
3. Permanent deletion requires a second confirmation step

This two-step approach protects against accidental data loss while still respecting your intent to remove content.

Accessing Trash

Find the Trash from your Library page — look for the 🗑️ Trash button in the action bar alongside Export All and Sync Highlights.

Trash Actions

Action	What It Does
Restore	Moves the highlight back to your active library
Delete Forever	Permanently removes the highlight (cannot be undone)

Deleting a Book

When you delete a book:

• All highlights from that book are moved to Trash
• The book itself is removed from your Library view
• You can restore individual highlights from the Trash

info

Deleting a book doesn't delete the book record — it soft-deletes all its highlights. If you restore a highlight, it will reappear in the original book.

Sync Behavior

Why did my deleted highlight come back?

If you delete a highlight in Lektr and then sync from your device (KOReader/Kindle), the highlight might reappear. This happens when:

1. You deleted the highlight in Lektr
2. You later edited that highlight on your device (changed the note, etc.)
3. You synced to Lektr

This is intentional. Lektr respects edits you make on your reading device. If the device's timestamp is newer than the deletion timestamp, Lektr assumes you want to keep the edited version.

How to permanently remove a synced highlight

1. Delete the highlight in Lektr (moves to Trash)
2. Go to Trash and click Delete Forever
3. If you sync again and the highlight is still on your device, it will be treated as a new highlight

tip

To completely remove a highlight, delete it from both Lektr and your reading device.

Summary

Scenario	Result
Delete highlight → Sync same data	Stays deleted ✓
Delete highlight → Edit on device → Sync	Resurrects (newer timestamp)
Delete Forever → Sync same data	Re-imports as new highlight
Delete from device too → Sync	Stays gone ✓