The short answer: Setup, Paused and Failed Flow Interviews. Paused interviews are waiting on a Pause element and can be resumed. Failed interviews hit an unhandled fault and cannot be resumed, only deleted. Both hold a frozen snapshot of every variable value and the element the interview stopped at, and both keep their flow version alive, which is why you cannot delete a version that has interviews sitting against it.
Where to look
The Setup page is under Process Automation and lists interviews across the org. You get the flow label, the interview label, the current element, the pause label if one was set, who started it, and when. You can filter by flow, by status, and by the user who is waiting.
There is a second view that matters more to users than to you: the Paused Flow Interviews component. Add it to the Home page or a utility bar and each person sees their own paused screen flows with a Resume link. Without it, a paused screen flow is effectively lost, because ordinary users do not have access to Setup.
What a paused interview is holding
A pause serialises the whole interview state. Every variable, every collection, the current element, the stage if you use stages, and the context of the user who started it. When it resumes it picks up exactly there, as that user, with those values.
Two consequences people design around badly. The values are a snapshot, not a live view: a record variable stored before the pause still holds the old field values when the interview resumes a week later, even though the record has moved on. If the resumed path needs current data, re-query it after the Pause element rather than trusting what you stored.
And the interview stays on the flow version it started on. Activating a new version does not migrate anything in flight. You can end up with interviews running logic you removed a month ago, which is correct behaviour and occasionally maddening. It is also why Salesforce refuses to let you delete a flow version while interviews reference it.
Resuming
Screen flow pauses are resumed by a person, from the Paused Flow Interviews component, from the Setup list, or from a link. Whoever resumes it continues in the original running user‘s context.
Autolaunched and record-triggered flows that pause on a time-based condition resume on their own. They go into the same queue as other time-based platform work, so resumption is “soon after” the scheduled moment, not at the moment. Do not build anything that depends on the minute.
Failed interviews are a different animal
A failed interview is the wreckage of an unhandled fault. It is there so you can see what happened, and that is all it is there for. You cannot resume it, you cannot edit its variables, and restarting means running the flow again from the beginning with the same inputs.
The detail you actually want is in the fault email, which by default goes to the user who last modified the flow. That email names the element, gives the error text, and lists the variable values at failure. Change the recipient in Process Automation Settings so alerts go to a team address rather than to whoever last opened the flow.
Deleting, and doing it on purpose
Both types are deleted from the same Setup page, individually or in bulk with the checkboxes. Deletion is permanent. A deleted paused interview cannot be recovered and the user’s half-finished work is gone, so do not clear the list without looking at what is in it.
Paused interviews count against an org limit, and a flow that pauses more often than it resumes will find that ceiling eventually. Two habits keep the list honest. Give every Pause element a pause label describing what it is waiting for, because “Paused” with no label tells nobody anything. And review the list on a schedule rather than when something breaks, because a growing count of paused interviews on one flow is usually a design problem announcing itself early.
Frequently asked
Can I resume a paused interview as a different user? No. The interview resumes in the context it was created in. If the original user has left, the practical answer is to delete it and rerun the process.
Do paused interviews hold a transaction open? No. The pause commits the transaction and releases limits. That is the main reason to use one: everything after the Pause element runs in a fresh transaction with fresh governor limits.
Why can I not deactivate my flow? Deactivation is usually fine. Deletion is what gets blocked. A version with paused interviews against it stays until those interviews are resumed or deleted.
