Send Lifespan

Unlike regular vault items and file attachments, Sends are ephemeral and have a default lifespan of seven days and can be set to last for up to 31 days using the deletion date option. When a Send reaches its deletion date, it's purged from Bitwarden systems and inaccessible to both sender and recipients.

Optionally, you can set additional limitations on access using the expiration date and/or maximum access count options. You can also manually disable or delete a Send at any time.

By default, Sends will automatically be deleted seven days after they are created. Using the deletion date option, you can change this to a range of pre-specified options (for example, 1 hour, 1 day, 31 days) or specify a custom timestamp using the date selector (or in the text input in the format MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM AM/PM).

Deletion date has a maximum allowed value of 31 days from creation.

When a Send reaches its deletion date:

• For recipients (anyone with the generated link), navigating to the Send link will show a screen reporting that the Send does not exist or is no longer available.

• For the sender, a  Pending Deletion icon will appear next to the Send. The Send will pend deletion for a few minutes, after which it will be permanently deleted from Bitwarden systems and from the sender's view.

  note

  Deleted Sends are not sent to or stored in the trash. Once the deletion has been confirmed, you will not be able to access the contents of a Send.

By default, Sends will never expire, but they will be deleted. Using the Expiration Date option, you can select from a range of pre-specified options (for example, 1 hour, 1 day, 7 days) or specify a custom timestamp using the date picker (or in the text input in the format MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM AM/PM).

When a Send reaches its expiration date:

• For recipients (anyone with the generated link), navigating to the Send link will show a screen reporting that the Send does not exist or is no longer available.

• For the sender, an  Expired icon will appear next to the Send. The Send will remain accessible to the sender until the specified deletion date is reached.

For all Sends, a Current Access Count ticker will track the number of times the Send link has been accessed:

You can specify a Maximum Access Count that is any positive integer.

When a Send reaches its specified maximum access count:

• For recipients (anyone with the generated link), navigating to the Send link will show a screen reporting that the Send does not exist or is no longer available.

• For the sender, a  Max access count reached icon will appear next to the send. The Send will remain accessible to its sender until the specified deletion date is reached.

To manually disable or delete a Send from any Bitwarden app:

• Web vault
• Browser extension
• Desktop
• Mobile
• CLI

Disable from the web vault

To disable a Send from the web vault, open the Edit Send view and check the Disable this Send so that no one can access it checkbox. You can uncheck this box at any time to re-enable access to the Send.

When a Send is disabled:

• For recipients (anyone with the generated link), navigating to the Send link will show a screen reporting that the Send does not exist or is no longer available.

• For the sender, a  Disabled icon will appear next to the Send. The Send will remain accessible to its sender until the specified Deletion Date is reached.

Delete from the web vault

To delete a Send from the web vault, use the hover-over  gear dropdown to select the  Delete button:

Disable from browser extensions

To disable a Send from a browser extension, open the Edit Send view and check the Disable this Send so that no one can access it checkbox. You can uncheck this box at any time to re-enable access to the Send.

When a Send is disabled:

• For recipients (anyone with the generated link), navigating to the Send link will show a screen reporting that the Send does not exist or is no longer available.

• For the sender, a  Disabled icon will appear next to the Send. The Send will remain accessible to its sender until the specified Deletion Date is reached.

Delete from browser extensions

To delete a Send from a browser extension, select the  Trash icon next to the Send you want to delete:

Disable from desktop apps

To disable a Send from a desktop app, open the Edit Send view and check the Disable this Send so that no one can access it checkbox. You can uncheck this box at any time to re-enable access to the Send.

When a Send is disabled:

• For recipients (anyone with the generated link), navigating to the Send link will show a screen reporting that the Send does not exist or is no longer available.

• For the sender, a  Disabled icon will appear next to the Send. The Send will remain accessible to its sender until the specified Deletion Date is reached.

Delete from desktop apps

To delete a Send from a desktop app, open the Edit Send view and select the  Delete button:

Disable from mobile apps

To disable a Send from a mobile app, open the Edit Send view and toggle the Disable this Send so that no one can access it option. You can toggle this option off at any time to re-enable access to the Send.

When a Send is disabled:

• For recipients (anyone with the generated link), navigating to the Send link will show a screen reporting that the Send does not exist or is no longer available.

• For the sender, a  Disabled icon will appear next to the Send. The Send will remain accessible to its sender until the specified Deletion Date is reached.

Delete from mobile apps

To delete a Send from a mobile app, tap the menu icon (  or  ) and tap the Delete option:

Disable from the CLI

To disable a Send from the CLI, you will need to use the edit command to change the "disabled":false key-value pair to "disabled":true, for example:

bw send get <id> | jq '.disabled=false' | bw encode | bw send edit

We recommend reading the Send from CLI article for more information.

Delete from the CLI

To delete a Send from the CLI, use the delete command with the Send's exact unique id as an argument:

bw send delete <id>