How to Pause and Reactivate QR Codes

What pausing actually does

A VastQR dynamic code has two things that stay separate on purpose: the printed pattern, which encodes a fixed short link, and a record behind that link holding a destination, a status, a scan count and a batch. Pausing changes exactly one field on that record — the status. It does not touch the printed pattern, the stored destination, or anything already counted in the scan history.

What a scanner sees on a paused code

The redirect stops working. A scan against a paused code returns an error page instead of reaching your destination — the printed square still scans fine, but the link behind it answers “this code is not active” rather than sending anyone anywhere. There is no separate branded landing page for a paused code; it is a dead end, deliberately, so nobody reaches a stale or half-decommissioned destination by accident.

Reactivating flips the status back, and the exact same printed pattern starts redirecting again — to whatever destination is currently stored for it. If you or someone else edited the destination while the code was paused, reactivating sends scanners to the new destination, not the one that was live before the pause.

Why pause instead of delete

Active, paused and deleted are not three flavours of the same thing. Active means the code redirects and holds one of your plan’s slots. Paused means the record is kept, the redirect stops, and the slot is freed — reversible, by design. Deleted means the record is removed, and if the printed code is still on a physical asset somewhere, it may stop working for good.

The test to apply before deleting anything

If there is any chance a printed copy of the code still exists — on a menu, a decal, a box, a mailer — pause it, don’t delete it. Deletion is a decision about physical objects you may not be able to reach again, not a housekeeping action.

How active, paused and deleted fit into managing hundreds of codes →

The capacity-slot mechanic

Every VastQR plan has one number that matters here: how many codes can be active at once. On the current plan that number is 500. Pausing and reactivating are the two doors in and out of that count.

State	Counts toward the limit?	Redirects?	Kept: destination, scan count, batch
Active	Yes — one of your active slots	Yes	Yes
Paused	No — the slot is freed	No	Yes
Deleted	No — the record is gone	No	No

That is what makes pausing useful for more than just “turning something off.” It is also how you make room: pause codes you are not currently running to free slots for the ones you are.

Pausing and reactivating one code

On a single code, pausing always succeeds — it can only free capacity, never consume it. Reactivating a single code is the one that is gated: if your account is already at its 500-code limit, reactivating that one code is refused outright. Nothing changes for it until you free a slot — by pausing a different active code, or by removing one from the count some other way.

Refused, not queued

A blocked single-code reactivation does not go into a waiting list. You have to make room first and try again; there is no automatic retry once a slot opens up.

Pausing and reactivating in bulk

At scale, the real workflow is selecting many codes at once — a whole batch tied to a promotion, a season, or a set of placements — and pausing or reactivating them together.

The VastQR QR library: a table of codes each showing its artwork, short link, editable destination, Active or Paused status, batch, scan count and PNG, SVG and PDF downloads, with a checkbox per row for bulk selection. — Status is a column on every row, next to the batch it came from. Selecting rows and choosing Pause or Activate applies the change to the whole selection at once.

Bulk pause has no capacity concern. Pausing fifty codes at once always succeeds for codes you own — every one of them frees a slot, so there is nothing to be refused.

Bulk reactivate behaves differently from a single-code reactivate, and this is the part worth planning around. Rather than refusing the entire selection when it does not fit under your 500-code limit, VastQR reactivates as many of the selected paused codes as currently fit and tells you how many were left paused for being over the limit. A batch of eighty selected for reactivation does not fail as one unit — some of the eighty come back on, and the rest stay paused until there is room.

More on bulk actions and what breaks when they are used carelessly →

When bulk reactivation hits the limit

Worked through with numbers, since the behaviour is easy to misjudge from a description alone:

Situation	What happens
You have 480 active codes and select 40 paused codes to reactivate	Only 20 slots remain. 20 codes reactivate; the other 20 stay paused and are reported as skipped.
You have 500 active codes and reactivate 1 paused code individually	Refused outright. Pause something else first, or the reactivation does not happen.
You have 300 active codes and select 40 paused codes to reactivate	All 40 fit and all 40 reactivate.

You do not choose which codes get skipped

The skipped codes are whichever ones did not fit under the cap at the moment the bulk action ran — there is no control in the interface for prioritising one code over another within a single bulk reactivation. If specific codes must come back online first, reactivate the smaller, higher-priority group on its own rather than one large mixed selection.

The practical upshot: before a large bulk reactivation, check your current active count against the 500-code limit. If the selection is bigger than the room you have, either pause down some other active codes first, or split the reactivation into smaller batches and confirm each one before running the next.

When to pause a code

A promotion or discount code ends on a known date and the QR should stop working until it runs again
A seasonal menu item, product line or campaign is temporarily out of rotation
A store location or event closes temporarily and its placements should not send anyone anywhere
A product is sold out and the packaging insert or shelf tag pointing at it should go quiet
A print run has a known error and reactivation needs to wait until the destination is fixed

In every case above, the alternative to pausing is either leaving a stale redirect live or deleting a code that is still printed somewhere — and deleting risks breaking a physical asset for good. Pause is the reversible middle option.

Before you pause or reactivate a large batch

Worth checking first

Know your current active count against the plan's limit before scheduling a bulk reactivate
Check whether the destination behind a paused code is still correct before switching it back on — nothing stops you from reactivating an outdated one
Use search and the status filter to find every paused code in a batch, since there are no folders or tags to browse by
Scan a representative sample of the batch after a bulk action to confirm the change landed on the physical assets you meant
If a bulk reactivation reports codes skipped over the limit, decide which of them actually need to come back online and reactivate that smaller group directly

Frequently asked questions

What happens when I pause a VastQR QR code?

The redirect stops working — a scan lands on an error page instead of reaching your destination. The code's record, its stored destination, its scan history and the printed artwork are all unaffected. Pausing also frees one of your active-code slots.

Does pausing delete the QR code?

No. Pausing and deleting are different, and only one of them is reversible. Pausing keeps the record and can be undone by reactivating. Deleting removes the record, and if the code is still printed anywhere it can stop working permanently.

What happens when I reactivate a paused code?

The same printed code starts redirecting again, to whatever destination is currently stored for it — which may have been edited while the code was paused. Reactivating uses one of your active-code slots.

Can I pause and reactivate codes in bulk?

Yes. Bulk pause has no capacity limit, since pausing only frees slots. Bulk reactivation is capped by your plan's active-code limit: VastQR reactivates as many of the selected codes as currently fit and reports how many were skipped for being over the limit, rather than refusing the whole selection.

How many active QR codes can I have?

Up to 500 on the $19/month plan. Paused codes do not count toward that limit — they stay in your library but stop redirecting.

Does pausing or reactivating cost anything extra?

No. There is no per-scan fee and no separate charge for pausing or reactivating a code. Both are part of the $19/month plan.

A reversible switch, not a delete button

Pause codes individually or as a selection, edit destinations while they're paused, and reactivate when you're ready — all within up to 500 active dynamic codes on one plan.

Try a batch See dynamic QR pricing