Soft Deletes: Safely Removing Records

Soft deletes mark records as deleted without removing them from the database. ## Enable soft deletes Migration: ```php $table->softDeletes(); ``` Model: ```php use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\SoftDeletes; class Post extends Model { use SoftDeletes; } ``` ## Use ```php $post->delete(); Post::withTrashed()->find(1)->restore(); ``` ## Flow ```mermaid flowchart LR A[delete()] --> B[deleted_at set] B --> C[Hidden] D[restore()] --> E[Visible again] ``` Soft deletes are useful for recovery and audit safety. In the next tutorial, we will move validation into form request classes.