Help · Account
What happens when you delete your account.
Account deletion is a single action that erases your data across both apps and every cell you belong to. Here’s the cascade in detail — what goes immediately, what’s retained for legal compliance, and how subscriptions interact.
Deleting your ConKarma account is a single action that erases your data across both apps and every cell you belong to. You request it at /delete-account from the main app, the After Dark companion, or this website, and the backend runs one erasure cascade keyed to your user_id covering both the main-app and After Dark namespaces — there's no "delete just one" path. Within about 60 seconds of the confirmed request, no user-attributed row referencing your user_id is queryable in production.
You no longer need to cancel platform subscriptions first; erasure handles entitlement cleanup, and the subscription stops renewing because the account is gone. A one-row audit entry is kept for 7 years for legal compliance, and encrypted disaster-recovery backups age out within 90 days. Deletion is irreversible.
Single action, two-app cascade
You request deletion at /delete-account in either the main app, the After Dark companion, or this website. The request is keyed by your user_id and the BE runs a single erasure cascade that covers both the main-app namespace and the After Dark namespace. There’s no ‘delete just one’ path — adult-tier data and family-tier data are erased together. This is the single hard-delete contract.
What goes immediately
Profile, cell memberships, journals, streaks, ledger balances, consent records, Spark transactions, calendar entries, grocery lists, meal plans, important dates, wishbook entries, sitters records, share tokens, magic-link sessions, all main-app entities — and on the After Dark side, Spice Calendar entries, dares, intimate journals, role-play scripts, vault-encrypted PII. Within ~60 seconds of the confirmed request, no user-attributed row referencing your user_id is queryable in production.
You don’t cancel subscriptions first
Earlier guidance asked users to cancel platform subscriptions before deletion. That’s no longer required. The erasure now triggers entitlement cleanup against the same `user_subscriptions` table regardless of which app holds the platform subscription — Apple or Google. The platform subscription itself stops renewing because the account is gone; if you want a refund for the current period, /support handles it case-by-case after deletion.
Cell-shared data
If you were the only adult in your cell, the entire cell is erased with you. If there were other adults, your contributions to shared entities (a shared grocery list, a shared meal plan, a journal entry tagged to a co-parent) are replaced with a deleted-user tombstone — the entity itself stays so the other cell members aren’t left with broken references, but your authorship is anonymised and the original text of your contributions is purged. Shared photos you uploaded are deleted; shared photos others uploaded that tagged you stay, with your tag removed.
Audit log retention
We retain a one-row audit entry per deleted account for 7 years per `AUDIT_RETENTION_DAYS` — this is the legal-compliance floor for fraud disputes and regulatory inquiries. The row carries: a hash of the original email, the deletion timestamp, the originating IP class (not the full IP), and the deletion source (which app / website). It does not carry your name, journal content, or any cell-scoped data. This row cannot be used to reconstitute your account.
Encrypted backups
Production backups retained for disaster recovery (90 days, encrypted, cold storage) may still contain your data until they age out of rotation. We do not restore from these backups in a way that would reintroduce a deleted user’s data — the erasure tombstone in the live system blocks any restored row from being re-served. After 90 days the last backup with your data ages out and is destroyed in the standard cycle.
Children’s data — COPPA
If you’re a parent and your account managed child cell members under 13, deletion of your account also triggers deletion of the COPPA-protected child accounts attached to your cell, with no separate per-child opt-in required. We notify any other adult co-parent in the cell so they have a chance to claim the child accounts before the cascade fires (the notice window is 7 days; you’re asked to consent to it at delete-request time).
Once it’s done
We cannot un-delete an account. Signing up again with the same email creates a new account from scratch — no carry-over of streaks, ledger, cell history, or subscription. If you’re considering deletion and just want a break, /help/solo-mode and /help/inactivity-relock describe lighter-touch options; deletion is the irreversible last step.
Frequently asked questions
Does deleting my account remove my After Dark data too?
Yes. Deletion is keyed to your user_id and runs a single cascade covering both the main-app and After Dark namespaces, so adult-tier and family-tier data are erased together. There's no path to delete just one.
Do I have to cancel my subscription before deleting?
No — that's no longer required. The erasure triggers entitlement cleanup automatically regardless of whether Apple or Google holds the subscription, and the platform subscription stops renewing because the account is gone. For a refund on the current period, /support handles it case-by-case after deletion.
What happens to shared family data when I delete my account?
If you were the only adult in your cell, the whole cell is erased with you. If there were other adults, your contributions to shared entities are replaced with a deleted-user tombstone so they aren't left with broken references — your authorship is anonymised and the original text purged.
Can I get my account back after deleting it?
No — we cannot un-delete an account. Signing up again with the same email creates a fresh account with no carry-over of streaks, ledger, cell history, or subscription. If you just want a break, /help/solo-mode and /help/inactivity-relock describe lighter-touch options.