As an administrator, you may need to unpublish an item that was made public in your repository. This should be done after careful consideration since anyone who finds a reference to the item and clicks the DOI or Handle will see a 'tombstone' page instead of the metadata and files(s). If you are just updating metadata or files, it may be best to just publish a new version rather than unpublish. 

Only accounts with administrator privileges have the ability to unpublish items that have been made public. Users without admin privileges and anyone using a free personal figshare account should see our help guide on how to unpublish their items.  

Note: only items can be unpublished. To unpublish projects or collections, please submit a support ticket. 

To unpublish an item, click on your account icon in the upper right corner and in the dropdown select Administration. On the administration page click the Unpublish tab. In the text box, enter the item’s DOI or item id (the number at the end of the item URL). You can add multiple items separated by commas. Click ‘Search’. Figshare will present you with some information on the item(s). Once you confirm the item(s) to unpublish, click unpublish and enter a reason for unpublishing. Figshare will automatically set up a tombstone page with the reason for unpublishing and the DOI will direct users to this page. After unpublishing the DOI is set to registered on the DOI minter side of things and is not findable. 

An unpublished item is returned to the user’s My Data as a drafted item, allowing them to make changes if necessary and republish. If republished, the original DOI will become active again and the tombstone page will be removed. 

Note: If you unpublish an item that has been versioned and then republish it, end users will no longer be able to see prior versions. This is to ensure that reason for unpublishing is addressed across versions.