Your data
Delete your account
You can permanently delete your Gathertell account and everything in it at any time. Here is exactly how, what gets removed, and how long you have to change your mind.
Do it yourself
In the app: open Account, scroll to the bottom, and choose Delete your account.
In the web portal at app.gathertell.com: open Account and find Leaving Gathertell, just under Your archive.
Either one shows you exactly what goes, asks whether your contributions to other people's albums should go too, and asks you to type DELETE so it does not happen by accident.
Or write to us
Email support@gathertell.com from the email address on your Gathertell account, with the subject “Delete my account.” We confirm the request is really you, then start the same deletion on your behalf.
If you have a subscription
Deleting your account does not cancel a subscription you bought on the App Store or on Google Play. Cancel it there first: on an iPhone in Settings, then your name, then Subscriptions; on Android in the Play Store, under Payments and subscriptions.
Your plan stays on until the end of the period you have paid for. Refunds follow the store's rules, which section 5 of our Terms explains.
You have seven days to change your mind
Asking does not delete anything that day, unless you choose to skip the wait. It starts a seven-day countdown, and everything stays exactly where it is until that runs out. Sign back in inside those seven days and choose Restore, and your account carries on as though you never asked. Nothing will have been touched.
That window is also there for a harder reason: if somebody else ever got into your account and asked for it to be wiped, you have a week to sign in and take it back.
What gets deleted
When the countdown runs out, we permanently remove:
- Your account, your profile, and your way of signing in
- Your albums, and every photo and video in them
- Your voice and video recordings, and the transcripts and captions made from them
- Every film made from your own albums and memories, and every share link you created (a link to another family's album is turned off)
- Music you uploaded, and anything else derived from your content
We email you when it is finished, so the promise ends with a receipt rather than silence.
Content in other people's albums
Photos and recordings you added to an album someone else owns stay in that album by default, because the album belongs to its owner and their family may be relying on it. When you ask for deletion you can choose to have those removed too. (Gathertell is consent-first: revoking your consent already stops a recording from being shown.) A film you made from an album someone else owns stays with that album.
How long it takes
We delete your account and data within 30 days of your request, and in practice it runs about a week after you ask, once the seven days are up. Copies are removed from routine backups on our normal backup rotation.
What we keep
Apart from what stays in other people's albums, we do not keep your photos, videos, or recordings after deletion, and we never sell your data. We may retain a minimal record that a deletion request was made and completed, only where required by law. We keep a record of a purchase, including our billing journal and the messages RevenueCat sent us about it, only as long as the law requires, for example for tax and accounting, and as needed to answer a refund or a dispute. We ask RevenueCat to delete its own record of your account once it is no longer needed for a refund or a dispute. Apple or Google keeps its own record of anything you bought, under its own privacy policy.
Questions
Reach us any time at support@gathertell.com. Our Privacy Policy covers retention and deletion in section 6.