# Will Stack Exchange keep record of every question I ever ask?

I was wondering if Stack-Exchange will allow me to access my questions at any point in the future even if I end up asking huge number of questions as I go along? Or is it the case that the site can only allot a finite memory to each user and the older questions get deleted? It would be nice to have the all the questions for back up incase I need to look up the answer again. Thanks in advance.

• In short, yes. Ask away. Answer away too, if you feel so inclined. And when others come to the site to ask a question, they may just find that one of your many questions has already asked that question, and already gotten an answer. That is a big part of the model of the site. – davidlowryduda Aug 10 '15 at 23:45
• You get a finite number of allowed contributions in general (questions, answers, comments, meta and chat and so on). But the upper bound is currently at $2^{1024}$ contributions. Hopefully as technology progresses this number might grow some more. – Asaf Karagila Aug 11 '15 at 10:21
• Will Stack Exchange keep record of every question I ever ask? - Big Brother is watching... – Lucian Aug 12 '15 at 10:58
• only $2^{1024}$. Ugh... This is a serious restriction on my learning potential. – Paddling Ghost Aug 12 '15 at 16:39
• Even deleted questions are still stored, they are only not shown to users other than OP, mods and the users that have enough rep to see deleted posts. But on very rare occasions a post can even be "hard deleted" (if that's the correct term). See, for example, What should I do if a user posts sensitive information as part of a question or answer? – Martin Sleziak Aug 13 '15 at 10:10
• @AsafKaragila: Given that there are only about $10^{50}$ atoms on earth, does that mean you're already planning on expanding to space? :-) – celtschk Aug 13 '15 at 12:53
• @celtschk: At present time I cannot confirm, nor deny any such plans. – Asaf Karagila Aug 13 '15 at 13:04
• @AsafKaraglia: Combined with the 50 questions/30 days limit, the OP will reach his/her limit of $2^{1024}$ questions in only 295511200251339601270570716294086257581037311606954505107008352588053713652878295560616675050532935925128954323076263053685681811749725954782762899681327327744275989191559701824058443180130565675813287044523297154254494272343774599683144839245195458350713168248635010805392733049555698035345791226779546526 years (give or take.) So we'd better get cracking on expanding the site's capabilities. – Michael Seifert Aug 14 '15 at 20:36
• @MichaelSeifert I guess that mean Stack Exchange has a year Y2.95e79 problem. – PyRulez Aug 22 '15 at 20:56

end up asking huge number of questions

You can ask no more than 50 questions in any 30-day period (and no more than 6 questions in any 24-hour period), so plan accordingly.

If you find $50\cdot 12 = 600$ good questions to ask every year, more power to you... But if they are bad questions, they are likely to get deleted even if you have only a few of them. The point is: if you want your questions to stay around for a long time, focus on their quality, not quantity.

• To be clear: Is this 50 questions on one site or 50 questions on the entire stackexchange platform? – Brian Fitzpatrick Aug 14 '15 at 3:30
• @BrianFitzpatrick The limit is site-specific; only a few sites have it enabled (including this one). – user147263 Aug 14 '15 at 3:39
• Nice avatar. Looks like you like down-votes a lot. but here i give an upvote. "Focus on quality, not quantity" so nice an advice. – Paramanand Singh Aug 16 '15 at 13:33

Your question are recorded as long as they do not get deleted by votes of other users or a process to clean up badly received content (thanks to quid for making the point more clear). And even then, once you'll have more than 10k reputation you will be able to still see them (after deletion). However, you will not to be able access them so easily as the other which are listed in your profile under question (see here).

• "Your question are recorded as long as they do not get deleted" I know what you mean to say but for the user asking the question this could feel a bit tautological. Perhaps one could add after "deleted:" by votes of other users or a process to clean up badly received content. – quid Aug 10 '15 at 23:30
• Even deleted questions are kept; users with 10K+ rep can see them still (with an indication that they were deleted). – user253751 Aug 13 '15 at 13:01
• @immibis this is written in my answer :). – Surb Aug 13 '15 at 15:16

There is not a limit on the amount of memory each user's posts can take up.* Stack Exchange can (and does) store all the questions you post, and does not delete old questions to free up space.

It is possible that some of your questions can be deleted, so if you really want to keep a record of them, make copies before you submit them here. But the reason for deletion will not have anything to do with age.

*OK, technically there is a limit, but it's not physically possible for you to write that many questions in your lifetime.

• +1;Nice to see you, here:) – user142971 Aug 14 '15 at 14:35
• "it's not physically possible for you to write that many questions in your lifetime" Is that a challenge? – PyRulez Aug 22 '15 at 20:57