Edit, cancel or delete a document
A draft can be edited or deleted. A sent envelope can only be cancelled, which is final and tells every recipient.
Which of the three you get depends entirely on whether the envelope has been sent. A draft can be edited freely or deleted outright, while anything already out for signature can only be cancelled, which is permanent and notifies everyone on it.
Who can do this
Whoever can manage the document: its creator, a manager over that person's team, or a workspace admin. No plan gate applies to any of the three. Drafts are the exception to team visibility, since an unsent draft is private to the person who created it.
Edit a draft
Open the document and click Edit draft beside the status badge, or use Edit on its row in the Documents list. Either one reopens the send wizard at the file step with everything you had, so you can swap the document, change recipients, move fields or rewrite the email before sending.
A draft holding a scheduled send time behaves differently: Edit is hidden while a schedule is set, because a quiet change to the file would alter what goes out later. Click Cancel schedule first and the envelope returns to being an ordinary draft.
Cancel a sent envelope
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Open the document. Cancelling is only offered while the status reads In progress.
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Click Cancel in the header. The same action sits under Cancel envelope in the row menu on the Documents list.
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Read the confirmation, which spells out that signing stops and every recipient is told, then click Cancel envelope. Keep envelope active backs out.
Cancelling is instant and final. Every outstanding signing link dies at once, and anyone who opens one now sees "This link has expired." Recipients get an email titled with the document name and the word cancelled, including people who had already signed, so nobody is left waiting on a document that is going nowhere. Two exceptions: someone who declined, and a signer you had already replaced, are left alone.
The envelope itself stays in your account with a Cancelled badge, filed under the Cancelled tab. Its activity feed keeps every event up to and including the cancellation, and the audit trail PDF is still downloadable from the document page.
Delete a draft
Deleting lives on the Documents list rather than the document page. Open the row menu at the end of a draft's row and choose Delete draft.
The confirmation warns that the draft and any files uploaded to it go permanently. There is no bin and no restore, so treat the button as final. Nothing is offered for a sent envelope, which is the intended answer rather than a missing feature: cancel it and the history stays where an auditor can find it.
If something goes wrong
- Edit has vanished from a draft. A send time is set on it. Use Cancel schedule on the banner, then edit.
- You cannot find Cancel on a signed document. Completed, declined, expired and already-cancelled envelopes have nothing left to stop. Only In progress offers it.
- Neither Cancel nor Delete appears on a document you can read. You have view access through your team, not manage rights. Its sender or a workspace admin can act on it.
- A signer signed while you were cancelling. Their signature counts and stays in the record. The envelope still cancels, and it will not complete.
- You cancelled the wrong envelope. Nothing brings it back. Open the cancelled one, click Save as template, and use that template to rebuild the same document in a couple of clicks.
Frequently asked questions
Can I change a document after it has been sent?
No. Once an envelope leaves, the file, the fields and the email wording are fixed, so every recipient can point at the same thing they were asked to sign. Cancel it and send a corrected copy. Only the recipients themselves can still be changed, by reassigning a pending slot.
Can a cancelled envelope be brought back?
Never. Cancelling writes a permanent event to the audit trail, kills every outstanding link and emails the recipients, none of which can be taken back. The document stays in your account under the Cancelled tab so you keep the history, but signing on it is over for good.
What happens to signatures already collected when I cancel?
They stay in the record. People who signed before the cancellation keep their entry in the audit trail and on the certificate, and they are told the envelope was cancelled along with everyone else. What you do not get is a completed, sealed PDF, because the document never finished.
Why is there no Delete button on a sent document?
Because deleting one would break the paper trail behind a real signing request. Sent envelopes are cancelled, not deleted, and the record of what was asked and who responded stays in your account. Deleting is only offered on drafts, which nobody outside your workspace has seen.
Can I delete a draft someone else in my workspace created?
You cannot even see it. Drafts stay private to the person who created them until the moment they are sent, so no admin listing or team filter surfaces another member's unsent work. Ask them to delete it, or wait until they send it.
Keep going
Reassign a signerGrowth and up
Hand one signing slot to a different person after the envelope has gone out, without cancelling it or restarting the workflow.
ReadSend reminders to signersGrowth and up
Nudge one signer by hand from the document page, or let auto-remind chase everyone on a schedule your admin sets once.
ReadSend now or reschedule a scheduled documentBusiness and up
A queued envelope keeps three controls until it fires. Send it early, move it to a new time, or drop the schedule and go back to a plain draft.
ReadReview and send: subject, message, expiry and reminders
The last wizard screen before an envelope goes out. Edit the email subject and message, set a deadline, turn reminders on, then send.
Read