When you delete a photo, a Circle, or your whole account, it disappears from the app immediately. Nobody can see it anymore.

Behind the scenes, it takes us a bit longer to erase every last copy from our systems — up to about four months if you deleted your account, and up to about six months if you deleted a single photo while keeping your account. (Deleting your whole account is a little faster, because we remove your account's own records sooner.) That extra time lets our records and backup copies age out safely.

Two things worth knowing. If you shared a photo with other people, deleting your copy doesn't remove theirs. And in rare cases the law requires us to hold on to something longer.

The rest of this article walks through each step in detail.

If you delete a photo or video and keep using your account

• Day 0: You delete the photo. It disappears from the app immediately. We create a deletion record in our audit history.
• Within 91 days of the deletion record being created: The audit-history record is deleted, as long as your account stays active.
• Within 89 days after that: If no other lawful reference to the file remains, the stored file is purged from our storage.
• Full erasure finishes within about 180 days of your deletion.

Example: you delete a photo on June 1.

• June 1 — the photo disappears from the app.
• By August 31 — the audit-history record is deleted (91 days).
• By November 28 — the stored file is purged, assuming no other lawful reference remains (89 more days).

If you delete your account

• Day 0: You delete your account. Your primary data is deleted immediately.
• Within 31 days: Your own audit-history records are deleted. (If a record instead shows something you did on someone else's still-active account, that record follows that other account's own active-account timeline instead — up to 91 days from when it was created, not the 31-day account-deletion window.)
• Within 89 days after a record leaves audit history: The corresponding stored file is purged, if no other lawful reference remains.
• Full erasure typically finishes within about 120 days of your account deletion.

Example: you delete a photo, then delete your account two weeks later.

• June 1 — you delete a photo.
• June 15 — you delete your account. Your primary data is deleted immediately.
• By July 16 — your own audit-history records are deleted (31 days).
• By October 13 — the stored files are purged, assuming no other lawful reference remains (89 more days).

A few things that can affect these timings

• Backups. Database backups may hold a copy of deleted or changed information for up to 91 days from when the backup was created.
• Shared content. If someone else also has a lawful copy of something you deleted — for example, a photo you shared that they still have in an active Circle — deleting your copy removes your data and your links to it, but it doesn't delete their lawful copy.
• Legal and safety exceptions. Some content is kept longer where the law requires it, or where safety and abuse-prevention rules require it. That includes CSAM or other legal-preservation holds, mandatory legal retention, UK Online Safety Act moderation logs, and a non-reversible hash we keep on banned accounts to prevent re-registration.

For the full legal disclosure, see Section 13 of our Privacy Policy.