Spanish for “undelete”?

Question

As we all know, every Stack Exchange site lets their users delete their own questions and answers. You can also vote to delete other users' VLQ posts, etc.

Once a post is deleted, there's a grace period during which users can undelete it, i.e. undo the action of deleting it.

Now, most English-Spanish dictionaries translate undelete as restaurar or recuperar (with some exceptions), but I find those verbs to be way too generic compared to the utterly-specific undelete. A more specific and literal translation would be something like desborrar, but that word already exists (to my own surprise) and has a totally unrelated meaning.

How would you translate undelete to Spanish?

Answer 1

Undelete:

Cancel a deletion

I think the correct translation for "delete" is closer to "suprimir" or "destruir", while "borrar" is closer to "erase".

The connotation, etymology and use of delete is also closer to "destroy" and the process of recovering from destruction is "restore".

So we cannot say "undelete" is the antonym of "delete" : "create", but to the process of going back from deletion: restoring what was deleted/destroyed.

For that reason I think it is correct to assume that the correct translation for "undelete" is restaurar.

Answer 2

Los ordenadores de Windows utilizan restaurar de DRAE:

Del lat. restaurāre.

1. tr. Recuperar o recobrar.

2. tr. Reparar, renovar o volver a poner algo en el estado o estimación que antes tenía.

3. tr. Reparar una pintura, escultura, edificio, etc., del deterioro que ha sufrido.

Las acepciones 1 y 2 son compartidas con otras respuestas.

Answer 3

¿Qué tal restituir?

restituir

2. tr. Restablecer o poner algo en el estado que antes tenía.

No es exactamente deshacer un borrado pero sí volver al estado anterior, en el caso de una entrada borrada sería volver a publicarla.

El problema es que habría que especificar que la entrada ha sido borrada para que se entienda pero en la frase de tu ejemplo podría valer:

Una vez que una entrada ha sido borrada hay un periodo de gracia durante el cual los usuarios pueden restituirla.

También podría valer revertir con un significado casi idéntico o restablecer que está en la propia definición de restituir.

Answer 4

Based on my own experience:

I have always used "desborrar", people always understood me. I remember having heard that word from my mom the first time almost thirty years ago, when my dad deleted some source code and my mom told him she had heard about "Norton Utilities" which could "desborrar" the files. It might not be the most correct term, but people will definitely understand you. Since nobody can come up with a more precise term, I guess nobody will dare to question your word choice.

The real meaning was unknown to me until I read the question and pressed on the link.

Answer 5

I myself also find recuperar weird, although seeing it over and over again in Stack Overflow en español starts making me feel

However, I think that reincorporar would fit better in this context:

reincorporar
Del lat. tardío reincorporāre.

1. tr. Volver a incorporar, agregar o unir a un cuerpo político o moral lo que se había separado de él. U. t. c. prnl.

With this word we are saying that a post was once incorporado into the site. It was later on deleted but finally it was added again.

I always relate this verb to what cars do when they resume their movement into a way, but the image seems powerful enough to fit in a context of posts being deleted and undeleted.

Answer 6

reponer

Del lat. reponĕre.

1. tr. Volver a poner, constituir, colocar a alguien o algo en el empleo, lugar o estado que antes tenía.

2. tr. Reemplazar lo que falta o lo que se había sacado de alguna parte.