# Remove or restart an approval

Requests get raised on the wrong page, or sent to the wrong people, or fired off before the page was really ready. All of it is fixable in a few clicks, and none of it loses the record of what happened.

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## Changing who is reviewing

You do not need to start over. Open the approval panel and add or remove people.

| **What you do** | **What happens**                                                                                                                                    |
| --------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Add someone     | They are notified and start as in review.                                                                                                           |
| Remove someone  | They stop being counted. If that made your required number of approvals impossible, the number drops automatically so the approval cannot deadlock. |

📝

Removing someone does not erase their answer from [the history](https://help.gocapable.com/approval/view-approval-history.html). It stays on the record with the time they gave it.

![image-20260902-122726.png](https://help.gocapable.com/images/5bba961d-8508-4349-a22e-86e19bd6d7fe.webp)

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## Withdrawing a request

Remove the approval from the panel. The approval is marked as removed, the page stops showing a status, and the history keeps everything that happened up to that point.

| **Before** | **After withdrawing** |
| ---------- | --------------------- |
| IN REVIEW  | NO APPROVAL           |

⚠️

**Withdrawing notifies nobody.** The people you asked are not told that you cancelled, so if they were already partway through reading it, go and tell them yourself.

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## Starting the review again

Three ways, depending on what you actually want.

| **You want**                                     | **Do this**                                                                                                                                                                                                                |
| ------------------------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Everyone to look again because the page changed  | Nothing at all. Publishing an edit resets the approval automatically. See [How approvals work](https://help.gocapable.com/approval/how-approvals-work.html). |
| Everyone to look again without changing the page | Withdraw the approval and [raise a new one](https://help.gocapable.com/approval/request-an-approval.html).                                                   |
| To swap in a different team                      | Apply the team in the panel. It replaces the whole reviewer list. See [Teams and assignment](https://help.gocapable.com/approval/teams-and-assignment.html). |

⚠️

Applying a team discards the answers already given, because it replaces the reviewer list entirely. If you only need one more pair of eyes, add that person by name instead.

![image-20260902-122746.png](https://help.gocapable.com/images/073fdef9-b290-4f9c-b851-128a4757f83c.webp)

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## The page was edited and now the status looks odd

That is the automatic reset doing its job. If the label says **Repair needed**, click repair. Nothing is lost, and [Common questions](https://help.gocapable.com/approval/common-questions.html) explains what repair actually does.

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## Who can do all this

Anyone who can edit the page, subject to whatever the space has restricted. Some spaces only let named people raise and change approvals. See [Who can do what](https://help.gocapable.com/approval/who-can-do-what.html).

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## A few things that catch people out

* Withdrawing is silent. Nobody is notified, ever.
* Applying a team is not the same as adding people. It replaces everyone.
* A withdrawn approval still shows in the history as removed, which is the point.
* Automation will not re-raise on a page that has been through the process before, so withdrawing on an automated space means raising the next one by hand. See [Automatic approvals](https://help.gocapable.com/approval/automatic-approvals.html).

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## Related

[Request an approvalRaising the replacement request.](https://help.gocapable.com/approval/request-an-approval.html)

[How approvals workWhy editing resets things.](https://help.gocapable.com/approval/how-approvals-work.html)

[View approval historyWhat is kept when you withdraw.](https://help.gocapable.com/approval/view-approval-history.html)

[Teams and assignmentWhy applying a team replaces everyone.](https://help.gocapable.com/approval/teams-and-assignment.html)

[Common questionsRepair needed, and what it does.](https://help.gocapable.com/approval/common-questions.html)

[Who can do whatWhether you are allowed to change it.](https://help.gocapable.com/approval/who-can-do-what.html)

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_Fixed, and the record of what happened is still intact._