Soft Deletes | GORM Studio

GORM Studio has built-in support for GORM's soft delete mechanism. Tables that use gorm.DeletedAt are automatically detected, and soft-deleted rows are handled appropriately in both the web UI and the API.

How It Works

GORM Studio automatically detects if a table has a deleted_at column during schema introspection. When this column is present, the following behavior applies:

By default, soft-deleted rows (where deleted_at is not NULL) are hidden from query results
You can opt in to viewing soft-deleted rows using the show_deleted query parameter

Defining Soft Deletes in Your Model

Use GORM's gorm.DeletedAt type on your model to enable soft deletes:

import "gorm.io/gorm"
 
type User struct {
    ID        uint           `gorm:"primarykey"`
    Name      string         `gorm:"size:100"`
    Email     string         `gorm:"size:200"`
    DeletedAt gorm.DeletedAt `gorm:"index"`
}

When a record is deleted through GORM (or through GORM Studio), the deleted_at column is set to the current timestamp instead of removing the row from the database.

Querying with Soft Deletes

Default Behavior — Hide Soft-Deleted Rows

By default, soft-deleted rows are excluded from results:

GET /studio/api/tables/users/rows

This only returns rows where deleted_at is NULL, matching GORM's default behavior.

Including Soft-Deleted Rows

To include soft-deleted rows in the results, add the show_deleted=true query parameter:

GET /studio/api/tables/users/rows?show_deleted=true

This returns all rows regardless of their deleted_at value, equivalent to GORM's Unscoped() method.

Web UI

In the web UI, a toggle is available on tables that support soft deletes. When enabled, soft-deleted rows are displayed alongside active rows, typically with a visual indicator to distinguish them.

Detection Details

The detection is straightforward: GORM Studio checks for the presence of a deleted_at column in the table schema. If the column exists, soft delete support is enabled for that table. This works automatically with no additional configuration required.