I have an account with n8n together with some colleagues from my company. We were using the Starter plan setup to create multiple accounts. After the 15-day free trial, we paid for the monthly subscription on the main (admin) account.
However, the workflows that we had created under the non-admin accounts were deleted once the trial ended. Only the workflows from the admin account were kept, and we lost access to the others.
My question is: is there any way to recover the workflows from the other (subordinate) accounts that were created during the trial period?
Hi Edgardo. It sounds like your colleagues were added as additional seats during the trial (the trial allows several members), but when you moved to a paid “Starter” plan only the admin account remained. In n8n Cloud, when a user account is removed the owner can choose either to transfer that user’s workflows and credentials to another user or to delete them permanently. If the plan downgrade automatically removed the non‑admin accounts and they weren’t transferred, the associated workflows and credentials were deleted.
n8n does keep backups of trial workspaces for a short period, but they are not kept indefinitely. The Cloud free‑trial documentation explains that after your trial ends you have up to 90 days to download or export your workflows; after this window all data is permanently deleted and cannot be recovered. Therefore:
If the trial ended very recently, contact n8n Cloud support immediately. They may be able to restore your workspace from a backup, especially if you are still within the 90‑day grace period.
If the trial ended more than 90 days ago, or if the non‑admin users were deleted without transferring their workflows, the data has been purged and cannot be recovered.
In future, before removing a user or downgrading your plan, go to Settings. Users and use the option to copy that user’s workflows and credentials to another user. Alternatively, use the Export feature in the Admin Dashboard to download a JSON backup of all workflows.
So the only possible recovery path is through n8n support, and only if the deletion was recent; otherwise the workflows are gone and you will need to rebuild them from scratch. I hope it helps you!