How to Restore a Deleted Repository in Nexus

When you delete a repository from the Nexus UI, Nexus will remove the repository from any groups it belongs to and move the repository contents to its 'trash' folder. Sometimes you will want to restore this repository back into service.

To restore a deleted repository with an ID of 'releases':

Move the 'sonatype-work/nexus/trash/releases' directory to 'sonatype-work/storage' so that you end up with 'sonatype-work/storage/releases'.
Recreate the repository with the same repository ID 'releases' using the repositories tab user interface.
Add the repository to any groups that it was in before.
If the repository had any scheduled tasks, you will need to recreate those as well.

Note: It is important to make sure that the 'trash' folder is not emptied before restoring a deleted repository; otherwise, the repository contents will be permanently lost.