Deleting a variable can sometimes be useful, although you might consider hiding it instead in case some important or sensitive information is at play.

Ways to delete a variable

Deleting a variable from the Data Table

To delete a column from the Data Table, simply click on the options menu next to the desired column’s name and click “Remove Variable”.

Delete variable data
table

Deleting a variable from either sidebar

You can also delete a variable by accessing the menu in the top right corner of the variable’s cards in either sidebar.

Delete variable data
table

Deleting a variable from the Variable Manager

You can also delete a variable from the Variable Manager, by accessing the menu in the top right corner of the variable’s card.

Delete variable variable
manager

Implications of deleting a variable

Deleting a variable means to completely remove it from the dataset, effectively “creating” a new version of the dataset without it.

Upon clicking on “Remove Variable”, a warning message will pop up, prompting you to confirm whether you are sure to perform the deletion of the variable.

This message will also display all the columns that may depend on the variable you are deleting. These variables would be deleted too.

Deletion Warning

Warning showing how the variable Year Born would be deleted if deleting Age. This column does not exist in the initial dataset, but was calculated using the derive_column step by subtracting the age value to the current year.

Undoing deletions

If you deleted a variable by mistake, you can reach to the undo button in the top right corner of the interface to undo that operation.

Undoing deletion

Undoing the operation will only be possible right after deleting. If you reload the page or come to a new session, it will no longer be possible to recover the data.

If all these things happened and you need to recover information, reach out to the team for help.