---
title: "Enable Accidental Protection on a node"
description: "Turn on Accidental Protection to stop a node from being deleted or reinstalled by mistake."
content_type: "how-to"
product: "node"
platform: "MyAccount"
url: "/myaccount/node/how-to/enable-accidental-protection/"
topic: ["protect"]
---

# Enable Accidental Protection on a node

Turning on Accidental Protection stops a node from being deleted, without changing anything about
how it runs. Use it for a node you want to keep until you deliberately decide otherwise.

## Turn Accidental Protection on

In **MyAccount**, open **Compute** and then **Nodes**. Next to the node, open **Actions**, then
**Security**, and click **Enable Accidental Protection**. A confirmation dialog opens; check its
box, then confirm.

Once it is on, the same menu entry reads **Disable Accidental Protection**, so you can tell at a
glance that protection is active. Turning it on only flips the setting: the node keeps running
exactly as it was, with no restart or interruption. This is not offered for a node still running
on the [older Xen hypervisor](/myaccount/node/faq/#what-is-a-node-on-the-older-xen-hypervisor).

While it is on, the node can be neither deleted nor reinstalled, since reinstalling erases it the
same way deleting does.

## Turn Accidental Protection off

Open **Actions**, then **Security**, and click **Disable Accidental Protection** to allow
deleting or reinstalling the node again.

Lock the node instead if you want to protect it from more than deletion, such as being powered
off, having its plan changed, or moved to another project. Locking blocks a wider set of
actions than Accidental Protection does; see [Lock a node](/myaccount/node/how-to/lock-a-node/).
If **Delete Node** stays greyed out after you turn protection off, see
[Troubleshooting node actions and lifecycle](/myaccount/node/troubleshooting/actions-and-lifecycle/#delete-node-is-greyed-out).