Deleting Goals and Tasks Together
Tick any mix of goals and tasks in the Tasks & Goals Manager and delete them in one action, with a confirmation that counts everything a goal takes with it.
Overview
In the Tasks & Goals Manager you can tick any combination of goals and tasks and delete them in one action — several empty goals, a goal along with its tasks, or a mix of goals and loose tasks.
Previously, selecting more than one goal left every delete option unavailable, and the quick-actions bar only appeared when your selection was made up entirely of tasks. Now the bar appears for any deletable selection.
💡 The short version: tick what you want gone, click Delete in the bar that appears, confirm, and it is gone. If a goal you ticked has anything inside it, the confirmation tells you exactly how much before you commit.
Deleting a Selection
- Open a project and go to its Tasks & Goals tab, in the Task List view.
- Tick the checkbox on each goal or task you want to remove.
- A quick-actions bar appears above the list reading "N selected" with a Delete button.
- Click Delete and confirm.
The rows disappear from the list as the deletion completes. You can also delete goals from ACTIONS → Delete Goal, which asks for the same confirmation.
Ticking a Goal Takes Everything Inside It
When you tick a goal, everything beneath it is selected too — its tasks, its sub-goals, and their tasks. That is deliberate: deleting a goal always removes what it contains, so the selection shows you the truth up front rather than surprising you afterwards.
- The count in the bar reflects what you are deleting as a unit. A goal and its children count as the one goal you ticked, because they go together.
- Each item is removed once, as part of its goal — never twice.
An empty goal has nothing beneath it, so ticking it selects only that goal.
The Confirmation Tells You the Full Cost
If any goal in your selection has children, the confirmation names the blast radius before anything is removed:
Are you sure you want to delete this goal?
This will also permanently delete 3 task(s) and 1 sub-goal(s).Those numbers come from the same walk that performs the deletion, so the number you are shown is the number that is removed — the warning and the outcome cannot disagree.
If a goal has nothing inside it, you get the plain question with no counts. That is on purpose: adding "and 0 tasks" to every delete would train you to click straight through the warning on the one that actually matters.
Your selection | What the confirmation says |
One empty goal | Are you sure you want to delete this goal? |
Several empty goals | Are you sure you want to delete 2 goals? |
A goal holding 3 tasks and a sub-goal | The question, plus “will also permanently delete 3 task(s) and 1 sub-goal(s)” |
Goals and loose tasks together | The question, with every task counted — those inside a goal and those you ticked yourself |
Tasks only | This will permanently delete N task(s). This cannot be undone. |
What Happens Behind the Scenes
- Your selection is reduced to its top-level items. A task inside a goal you ticked is not sent separately — it will be removed with its goal.
- Everything goes out as a single delete, whatever mix of goals and tasks it contains.
- Sapience checks you are allowed to delete each item. On a project shared with you read-only, the deletion is refused.
- Goals are removed together with everything inside them.
- The list is brought back into line, so items removed as part of a goal leave the view too.
Tasks disappear from the list immediately and come back if the deletion fails. Goals wait for the deletion to finish before their rows go — a goal deletion removes a whole branch, and briefly showing you a half-restored branch would be worse than a short wait.
The Other Bulk Actions Are for Tasks
The quick-actions bar also carries set status, change due date and set assignee. Those apply to tasks, so they appear only when your selection is tasks alone. Tick a goal and they step aside, leaving Delete.
In Views & Reports, where a view can hold several kinds of item at once, those buttons stay on screen but greyed, with a line telling you why — so you can see the option exists and understand what is blocking it.
Things Worth Knowing
- Deletion is permanent. There is no undo, which is why the confirmation counts everything first.
- Read-only projects. If a project was shared with you for viewing, deletions in it are refused.
- The project row itself is never deletable from this list — only its goals and tasks.
Summary
Tick any mix of goals and tasks in the Tasks & Goals Manager and delete them in one action from the quick-actions bar. Ticking a goal takes everything inside it, and when that is more than nothing, the confirmation tells you exactly how many tasks and sub-goals go with it — the same count that the deletion actually performs.