# Deprecating a term, and finding out whether it is still used

**Category:** [Standards & Brand Hub](https://help.totalctrl.app/hc/totalctrl/totalctrl-help-center/en-US/categories/standards)
**Updated:** 2026-10-04

## Deprecated means "stop using this"

Set a term's status to **Deprecated** when it should no longer be used but has not been eradicated yet. It stays in the glossary — a deprecated term that vanishes is one nobody can look up when they meet it in old content — and it is shown as deprecated everywhere it appears.

## Is it actually gone?

Deprecating a word is the easy half. The question that follows is whether anybody is still using it, and until now the only way to answer it was to search by hand.

**Check usage** on a deprecated term scans the workspace's content and reports every place it still appears, with the surrounding text so you can judge each one. Today it reads String Manager — where the words that actually ship live.

A term with no hits can be retired for real. A term with forty hits is a piece of work somebody has to schedule, and now you know that before you announce the change rather than after.

## No model is involved

This is a text search, and every hit is something you can verify by looking at it. A term hunt a model can talk itself into is not a control — and scanning thousands of strings is not something to spend AI Units on.

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## Related Articles

- [Brand Portals: a public home for your brand](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/brand-portal)
- [App Settings: assign a package to each app](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/standards-app-settings)
- [Brand Voice: your workspace's verbal identity](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/brand-voice)
- [Create your first Standards Package](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/create-a-standards-package)
- [Build a tone profile](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/build-a-tone-profile)

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