Boost Your Laravel App’s Efficiency with Soft Deletes.

4 min readAug 25, 2024

Laravel has a strong feature called soft deletes that lets you keep data even after it has been successfully removed from view. Soft deletes identify records as deleted but leave them in the database; they can be restored if necessary. This strategy can enhance your application’s effectiveness and preserve data integrity.

Understanding Soft Deletes

Laravel adds a deleted_at column to your database table when you enable soft deletes. Laravel indicates that a record is removed by setting its deleted_at value to the current timestamp rather than deleting it.

2. Setting Up Soft Deletes

Step 1: Add deleted_at Column

First, you need to add a deleted_at column to your database table. This can be done by creating a migration.

php artisan make:migration add_deleted_at_to_users_table --table=users

Then, in the generated migration file:

public function up()
{
    Schema::table('users', function (Blueprint $table) {
        $table->softDeletes();
    });
}

Run the migration:

php artisan migrate

Step 2: Update Your Model

In your Eloquent model (e.g., User), use the SoftDeletes trait to enable soft deletes:

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\SoftDeletes;

class User extends Model
{
    use SoftDeletes;
    
    protected $dates = ['deleted_at']; // Specify the column name
}

Here’s a breakdown of what each part does:

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model
This line imports the `Model` class from Laravel’s Eloquent ORM. By extending this class, the `User` class inherits the functionality for interacting with the database.
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\SoftDeletes
This line imports the SoftDeletes trait, which enables soft deletes for the User model. Soft deletes allow you to keep a record of deleted entries in the database by setting a deleted_at timestamp instead of permanently removing the record.
class User extends Model
This line defines the User class, which extends the Model class. This means User inherits all the features of Eloquent models, such as querying the database and working with relationships.
use SoftDeletes
This line applies to the SoftDeletes trait to the User model, enabling soft delete functionality. With this trait, the User model will now handle deletions by setting a timestamp in the deleted_at column rather than removing the record from the database.
protected $dates = [‘deleted_at’]
This line specifies that the deleted_at column should be treated as a date. Laravel needs to know that `deleted_at` is a date column to properly handle it when performing soft deletes and other date-related operations.

In summary, this User model uses soft deletes, which means when you delete a user, the record is not permanently removed from the database. Instead, Laravel sets a timestamp in the deleted_at column, allowing you to later restore the record if needed.

3. Using Soft Deletes.

Soft Deleting a Record

To soft delete a record, use the delete method:

$user = User::find(1);
$user->delete();

Restoring a Soft Deleted Record

To restore a soft deleted record, use the restore method:

$user = User::withTrashed()->find(1);
$user->restore();

Permanently Deleting a Record

If you want to permanently delete a record from the database:

$user = User::withTrashed()->find(1);
$user->forceDelete();

4. Querying Soft Deleted Records

Retrieving Only Active Records

By default, Laravel queries only the non-deleted records:

$users = User::all();

Including Soft Deleted Records

To include soft deleted records in your query, use the withTrashed method:

$users = User::withTrashed()->get();

Retrieving Only Soft Deleted Records

To get only the soft deleted records, use the onlyTrashed method:

$deletedUsers = User::onlyTrashed()->get();

5. Customizing the Deleted Column Name

By default, Laravel uses deleted_at as the column name. If you want to customize this, override the getDeletedAtColumn method in your model:

<?php

namespace App\Models;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\SoftDeletes;

class User extends Model
{
    // Use the SoftDeletes trait to enable soft delete functionality in this model
    use SoftDeletes;
    
    /**
     * Override the default 'deleted_at' column name.
     * By default, Laravel uses 'deleted_at' for soft deletes,
     * but you can customize it by overriding the getDeletedAtColumn method.
     *
     * @return string
     */
    public function getDeletedAtColumn()
    {
        // Specify the custom column name for soft deletes
        return 'custom_deleted_at';
    }
}

Make sure to update the column name in your migration accordingly.

6. Handling Soft Deletes in Relationships

Soft deletes can also be used in relationships. For example, if a Post has many Comments and you want to include soft deleted comments in a post’s comments, use the withTrashed method on the relationship:

public function comments()
{
    return $this->hasMany(Comment::class)->withTrashed();
}

Conclusion

With Laravel, soft deletes offer a reliable method of managing data without erasing it. You can make sure that your application processes data more effectively and maintains crucial information by putting these pointers and techniques into practice.

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