OSF Projects Transition

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Overview

OSF Project workflows are being phased out between November 2026 and February 2027. Read more about the reasons for these changes and the future roadmap for OSF.

For most users with projects, no action is required. Your content will remain accessible in a read-only state after February 2027. Below you'll find details on what's changing, how you can manage the changes, and answers to common questions.

Starting November 16, 2026, no new projects or child components of existing projects can be created on OSF. All other functions remain the same.
Starting February 19, 2027, all OSF projects will be converted into a read-only project. You will continue to have access to all project materials, but no further changes or additions can be made. All links and DOI identifiers to content will continue to resolve. Registrations and preprints will continue to operate as they did before.

Read more about the details of the OSF Projects transition.

The sections below will help you figure out how the changes affect you and the content you have stored on OSF.

How does this affect me /What happens to my content
So What Do I Do Now?
Other Questions

How does this affect me / What happens to my content?

How this affects you depends on whether you have public or private content on the OSF.

What if I don't know if my content is public, private, add-on, or shared?
Do you have content shared publicly in OSF Projects or Components?
Do you have content shared privately in OSF Projects or Components?
Do you have both public and private content in the same Project?
Do you share content in storage add-ons (Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.)?
Have you shared anonymous or view-only links?
Have a more specific situation?

What if I don’t know if my content is public, private, add-on, or shared?

The best place to start is on your My Projects page. From here, you can sort projects between public and private and can download files directly from add-ons. Read more on our Projects help guide.

Do you have content shared publicly in OSF Projects or components?

If so, you do not need to do anything. Your content will remain on OSF as a read-only project and will be accessible at the same URLs and DOIs, if one was generated. If your project is affiliated with a member institution, that affiliation will be retained.

If your public project does not need further updates, we strongly recommend that you take no action. The Center for Open Science will continue to manage your content. This will ensure that any DOI or URL you have shared will always direct to the appropriate content or file.

If you want to move your content to another repository, you may do so. See the help guide on downloading files from OSF Projects for more information on this process. If your project has been given a DOI or you wish to have a URL redirected, you will need to follow the redirect process.

After February 19, 2027, project admins will be able to delete the project, but no other changes can be made, including adding contributors, creating DOIs, changing the project to private, or editing metadata.

Do you have content shared privately in OSF Projects or components?

No immediate action is required. Your content will be archived on OSF as a read-only project on February 19, 2027 and will remain accessible at the same URLs to the users who have access on that date. If your project is affiliated with an institution, that affiliation will be retained.

If your private content can be published, we encourage you to make it public now. Make sure to remove any sensitive or identifiable information from your datasets and materials that may be proprietary or otherwise unshareable before making the project public.

If you decide to keep your data private, you will not be able to grant individual access to new users by adding them as contributors after February 19, 2027. You may either delete or make private content public after this date. You will not be able to make public content private again.

Because private workflows are costly to maintain, further changes may be made in the future to infrastructure or storage capabilities for private projects. We anticipate removing private projects in the future but intend to provide substantial advance notice, with a target of at least 12 months.

For these reasons, or if you are actively using your private project space, you may wish to move it to another repository. See the guide on downloading files from OSF Projects for more information on this process.

Do you have both public and private content in the same Project?

All Projects and components will become read-only, and access at current levels is maintained. Public components will continue to be public and private components will still be available to those who have access to them on February 19, 2027. See the sections above for more details on how those different kinds of projects work.

After February 19, 2027, private projects or components may be made public, but public projects and components may not be made private. Any project or component, private or public, may be deleted after February 19, 2027.

You are responsible for ensuring that the correct components are private or public. Components are private by default upon creation.

If so, no action is required. The OSF will maintain links to add-on storage locations such as Google Drive, Dropbox, One Drive, etc. They will continue to show updated lists of files available in those locations and will be accessible.

However, they will no longer be modifiable through the OSF interface (for example, the ability to upload a new file to the add-on will not be possible). No new storage add-ons can be configured for projects, but reauthentication to keep an existing connection and the ability to connect and remove existing add-ons will still be available.

Check that any add-ons you have connected are set up properly before they cannot be changed on February 19, 2027. You can see all the add-ons you have connected on your user profile page.

Longer term, OSF’s product direction is toward linked services and interoperable connections that allow research materials to live in appropriate external systems while remaining connected to OSF study plans and preprints. If further changes are made to add-ons, we will provide substantial advance notice, with a target of at least 12 months.

Have you shared anonymous or view-only links?

If you shared an anonymous link and the content is now public, you do not need to do anything.

If you shared an anonymous link and the content is and will remain private, you do not need to do anything. However, you will be unable to create any new anonymous view-only links for projects and components beginning on February 19, 2027.

If you need to share anonymized links in the future, you will have to move your materials to a different repository. Not all repositories have this feature, but, for example, Zenodo allows for link sharing, and you can make the creators anonymous.

Have a more specific situation?

Take a look at our Frequently Asked Questions.

So What Do I Do Now?

Depending on how you use OSF Projects, you may not need to take any action. The options below can help you decide the best next step for your materials moving forward.

Store My content on OSF

If your project is complete and you don't need to make further changes, you can leave it on the OSF. Your content will remain accessible as a read-only project after February 19, 2027.
Download and Export Content

If you decide to move your content off the OSF, you'll first need to download or export it. This guide explains the available options and how to prepare your content for moving elsewhere.
What Do I Do With My Research Content?

Explore guidance for moving active research content, including choosing appropriate repositories, preserving project organization, managing persistent identifiers, and finding resources for specific workflows.
What Do I Do With My Non-Research Content?

Find recommendations for course materials, open educational resources, project management, teaching open science, and other non-research uses that were previously supported by OSF Projects.