This version of GitHub Enterprise Server was discontinued on 2024-09-25. No patch releases will be made, even for critical security issues. For better performance, improved security, and new features, upgrade to the latest version of GitHub Enterprise Server. For help with the upgrade, contact GitHub Enterprise support.

Restoring a deleted organization

You can partially restore an organization that was previously deleted on your GitHub Enterprise Server instance.

Who can use this feature?

Site administers can restore an organization on GitHub Enterprise Server.

In this article

About organization restoration

You can use the site admin dashboard to restore an organization that was previously deleted on your GitHub Enterprise Server instance, as long as the audit log Elasticsearch indices contain the data for the org.delete event.

Immediately after you restore an organization, the organization will not be exactly the same as it was prior to the deletion. You'll have to manually restore any repositories that were owned by the organization. For more information, see Restoring a deleted repository.

You can also use the audit log to help you manually re-add teams and organization members. For more information, see Restoring members and teams.

Restoring an organization

  1. From an administrative account on GitHub Enterprise Server, in the upper-right corner of any page, click .

  2. If you're not already on the "Site admin" page, in the upper-left corner, click Site admin.

  3. Under "Search users, organizations, enterprises, teams, repositories, gists, and applications", search for the organization.

    Screenshot of the "Search" page of the "Site admin" settings. The button to search users, labeled "Search," is highlighted with an orange outline.

  4. Under "Deleted accounts", to the right of the organization you want to restore, select the dropdown menu, then click Recreate.

Restoring members and teams

You can use the audit log to find a list of the previous members and teams of the organization, then recreate them manually. For more information about using the audit log, see Auditing users across your enterprise.

In all the search phrases below, replace ORGANIZATION with the name of the organization and TEAM with the name of the team.

Restoring organization members

  1. To find all users who were added to and removed from the organization, search the audit log for action:org.add_member org:ORGANIZATION and action:org.remove_member org:ORGANIZATION.
  2. Manually add to the organization each user that should still be a member. For more information, see Adding people to your organization.

Restoring teams

  1. To find each team name, search the audit log for action:team.create org:ORGANIZATION.
  2. Manually recreate the team. For more information, see Creating a team.
  3. To find the members that have been added to each team, search for action:team.add_member team:"ORGANIZATION/TEAM".
  4. Manually re-add the team members. For more information, see Adding organization members to a team.
  5. To find the repositories that the team was granted access to, search for action:team.add_repository team:"ORGANIZATION/TEAM".
  6. To find the access level that the team was granted for each repository, search for action:team.update_repository_permission team:"ORGANIZATION/TEAM".
  7. Manually give the team access again. For more information, see Managing team access to an organization repository.