Disable Encryption on Fields
You can disable Shield Platform Encryption for fields, files, or both. You can turn field encryption on or off individually, but file encryption is all or nothing.
Required Editions
| Available in both Salesforce Classic (not available in all orgs) and Lightning Experience. |
| Available in: Enterprise, Performance, and Unlimited Editions with the Salesforce Shield or Shield Platform Encryption licenses. |
| Available for free in Developer Edition. |
| User Permissions Needed | |
|---|---|
| To view setup: | View Setup and Configuration |
| To disable encryption: | Customize Application |
When you turn off Shield Platform Encryption for a field, encrypted data is automatically mass-decrypted. The decryption starts automatically after you disable encryption for specific fields and save your changes. When data is decrypted, any functionality that was limited or unavailable when the data was encrypted is also restored. Salesforce notifies you by email when the decryption process is complete, or if errors prevent certain field values from being decrypted.
Decryption errors are most common for fields included in standard or custom indexes, as well as fields that use case-insensitive deterministic encryption. If some field values aren’t decrypted, contact Salesforce Customer Support for assistance.
Considerations for turning off encryption:
- Automatic decryption takes longer when you disable encryption on fields encrypted with a key that’s been archived. Salesforce notifies you by email when the process finishes.
- Long text area and rich text area field types can’t be automatically decrypted. If you decrypt data encrypted with a destroyed key, that data can’t be mass-decrypted.
- If you disable Shield Platform Encryption and can’t access data in fields that were previously encrypted, contact Salesforce for help.
- The Shield app offers an improved experience for managing Field-Level Encryption, including disabling encryption for fields. See Turn Off Encryption for Standard and Custom Fields.
- From Setup, in the Quick Find box, enter Encryption Settings, and then select Encryption Settings.
- In the Advanced Encryption Settings section, click Select Fields.
- Click Edit.
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Deselect the fields that you want to stop encrypting, and save your work.
Users can see data in these fields.
- To disable encryption for files and attachments, Chatter, or other data categories, turn off those features from the Encryption Settings page, and save your work.
After your data is decrypted, functionality that Shield Platform Encryption limited or changed is restored.
