Editing an automation that is already running

You can edit an active automation. What you cannot do is change what has already happened, and the difference produces most of the confusion.

Contacts already in the flow keep their path

Someone part-way through continues on the version they entered. Fixing a typo in email 3 does not fix it for anyone who has already passed email 3, and does not un-send anything.

So after any edit to a live flow, expect a period where people are experiencing both the old and the new version. That is not a bug and there is no way to reconcile it — the older emails are already delivered.

What is safe to change live

• Email content and subjects — anyone who has not reached that step gets the new version.
• Adding steps at the end — contacts who already finished will not come back for them, but everyone still in the flow will arrive.
• Tags and audience actions.

What to be careful with

• Changing the trigger changes who enters from now on. It does not re-enrol anyone, and it does not remove people already inside.
• Changing delays affects contacts who have not yet reached that delay. Shortening one can bunch several emails together for people mid-flow.
• Removing steps that contacts are currently sitting in.

When to build a new automation instead

If you are rewriting more than a step or two, build a new flow and retire the old one. Pause the old automation so it stops enrolling, let the contacts inside finish, then archive it.

That gives you clean reporting per version and avoids a month of "why did this person get that email" questions. See How your automation emails are performing.

Pausing freezes, it does not skip

Paused stops enrolment and holds contacts where they are. Reactivating continues them from that point — they do not jump ahead to catch up, and they do not restart.

Next: before editing a live flow, check Flow Emails to see how many people have already passed the step you are changing.