Delete your SendChat account

Delete your account in the app

This is the quickest way. Use your main phone: the phone you signed in on with your phone number. A computer or extra phone linked to your account can’t delete it.

1. Open SendChat, tap ⋮ at the top of Chats, then tap Settings.
2. Scroll to the bottom and tap Delete my account, in red, under Sign out.
3. Read the Delete account? box. While a SendChat Pro subscription is set to renew, or is in its grace period after a failed payment, it also reminds you to cancel it in the App Store or Google Play, with a Manage subscription button (see SendChat Pro).
4. Type DELETE and tap Delete.
5. SendChat shows “Deleting your account…”, then goes back to the sign-in screen. Your account has been deleted.

You need an internet connection. If SendChat says “Could not delete account”, check your connection and try again.

Deleting is permanent. It also removes every message you sent from everyone’s chats and groups. SendChat doesn’t restore deleted accounts. If you sign up again later with the same number, you start a new, empty account.

Lost your main phone?

Install SendChat on another phone and sign in with your phone number. That phone becomes your main phone, and you can delete your account from it. If you set a two-step PIN, you’ll need it. If you’ve forgotten it, tap Forgot PIN? on the PIN screen: after a 7-day wait you can sign in without it.

If you don’t have the app any more

You can ask us to delete your account by email, from any email address. We check that the account is yours with a code sent by text message to its phone number. (If you can still get texts at that number, you can also sign in on any phone and delete it there: see Lost your main phone?)

1. Email support@sendchat.ca with the subject Delete my SendChat account. Include the phone number of your account with its country code, for example +1 613 555 0123. That’s all we need: please don’t send ID documents, passwords or sign-in codes. If you pay for SendChat Pro, cancel it in the App Store or Google Play first: deleting your account doesn’t cancel it.
2. A person at SendChat reads your email, replies, and texts a one-time deletion code to that number from their own phone. That text comes from a different number than SendChat’s automatic texts, such as sign-in codes.
3. Reply to our email with the code.
4. We delete your account in the same way as Delete my account in the app, and email you when it’s done. We do this as soon as we can once we have the code, and always within 30 days of receiving it.

If the code never comes back to us, nothing is deleted.

If your account has a two-step PIN

Once the code comes back, we text the account’s number that a deletion was asked for by email and, as with Forgot PIN?, wait 7 days before deleting it. If you didn’t ask, email us within those 7 days and nothing is deleted.

Got a deletion code you didn’t ask for? Someone may be trying to delete your account. Don’t share the code with anyone, and nothing will happen. Never give anyone your sign-in code either, including us.

No longer have the number?

Then we can’t check that the account is yours, so we can’t delete it by email. If SendChat is still signed in on your main phone, you can delete your account there: it doesn’t need the number.

Otherwise, an account nobody opens for 12 months is deleted (see Accounts nobody uses). That doesn’t happen while the account has SendChat Pro, paid or given free, and a paid subscription keeps renewing until you cancel it. So if you pay for Pro, cancel it in the App Store or Google Play.

Phone companies give old numbers to new people. If you’re giving up a number, delete your SendChat account first.

Accounts nobody uses

SendChat deletes an account that nobody has opened on any of its devices for 12 months, in the same way as Delete my account, including the messages it sent.

• A notification to its phones and a text to its number come 30 days and 7 days before. Opening SendChat once cancels it.
• An account no warning can reach, for example because its number no longer works, is still deleted on its date.
• Accounts with SendChat Pro, paid or given free, aren’t deleted this way. For them, the 12 months start when Pro ends.
• A phone or computer still signed in to an account deleted this way says why (see What is kept).

Before you delete

• Save a copy if you want one. Download my data, at the bottom of the Personal tab in Settings › Account, makes a zip file of your profile, your settings and the names you gave people, every chat’s messages (yours and other people’s), and your listings, posts and bids, with or without photos, videos and files. It’s ready in minutes to hours, and you then have 7 days to download it. A phone or computer signed in less than 7 days ago can’t ask for a copy, or download one, until it has been signed in for 7 days. The copy is deleted with your account, so download it first.
• Cancel SendChat Pro in the App Store or Google Play first, if you pay for it (see SendChat Pro).
• Groups you run. If you’re a group’s only admin, another member becomes its admin when you delete your account. No notice is posted in the group. To choose who, make them an admin first.
• Groups of more than 10. If you’re the only admin with SendChat Pro in a group of more than 10, deleting your account starts its 30-day countdown: unless a member with Pro is made an admin, the newest members who aren’t admins are then removed until 10 remain. To avoid it, make a member with Pro an admin first.
• Clear media from your devices if you want. Photos, videos, voice notes and files that SendChat saved on a phone or computer stay there after your account is deleted, until you uninstall SendChat. To remove them first, open Settings › Storage and data on each phone and computer and tap Free up space.

What is deleted

Your account is deleted at once. Its files are removed in the minutes that follow, and a Download my data copy within about 2 hours. If a removal fails, SendChat tries again every hour until it’s done.

• Your account and profile: your phone number, name, photo, status and its away message, business details, settings, chat wallpapers and two-step PIN, and the record of your phones and computers and their sign-ins.
• Every message you sent, in every chat and group, with its photos, videos, voice notes, files, stickers, locations and polls. They are removed from everyone’s chats on SendChat’s servers, and from other people’s phones and computers that are connected at the time. A device that was offline then may keep showing copies it had already saved (see What is kept).
• Your place in your chats and groups: your read receipts, reactions and starred messages, and your pinned, archived and muted chats. Chats and groups carry on for the other people in them, with their own messages. A group’s name, photo and description stay as they are, even if you set them.
• Your posts, and who viewed them.
• Your Marketplace activity: your listings and drafts with their photos and video, your bids and offers, the listings you watch, your alerts, and the record of any sale you were part of, as buyer or seller.
• Your contacts on SendChat: which people in your address book are on SendChat, the coded records of the numbers your address book checked and of the numbers in it now, the names you gave people, and the encrypted copy of your address book kept for your linked devices.
• Stickers you made.
• Your problem reports, their screenshots and your SendChat Support chat, and any reports you made about other people or their content.
• Your SendChat Pro record, and your customer record at RevenueCat, the company that manages SendChat Pro subscriptions for us.
• Your Download my data copy, if you have one.
• Your other records: the people you blocked, your online status and last seen, and the record of which Terms of Use and Privacy Policy you agreed to.
• Your chats and settings saved on your devices: on the phone you delete from, SendChat clears them and goes back to the sign-in screen. Your other phones and computers are logged out and do the same the next time they connect. Photos, videos, voice notes and files saved on a device are not cleared (see What is kept). SendChat itself stays installed until you uninstall it.

What is kept, and for how long

A few things outlive your account. Here is each one, and how long it stays.

• Other people’s messages, and copies they made

  Messages other people sent you stay in their chats. So do copies they made from yours: messages or media they forwarded, stickers they added to their own stickers, Marketplace listings they shared into a chat, and the copy of your post or listing that a reply to it shows.

  Until they delete them, or their own account

• What other people saved

  A phone or computer of someone you chatted with that was offline when your account was deleted may keep showing your messages it had already saved. Anything people saved to their own phone or computer is theirs. So is a Download my data copy someone asked for before you deleted your account: it holds their chats with you. It stays on SendChat for up to 7 days after it’s ready, and is theirs once they download it.

  Theirs to keep; on SendChat, up to 7 days

• Photos, videos and files on your devices

  Photos, videos, voice notes and files that SendChat saved on a phone or computer stay in SendChat’s storage there. A device that never connects again keeps everything SendChat saved on it. To remove them sooner, tap Free up space in Settings › Storage and data before you delete.

  Until you uninstall SendChat from that device

• A listing someone reported

  If someone reported one of your Marketplace listings and SendChat hasn’t dealt with the report when your account is deleted, the listing’s photos and video are kept as evidence. Only SendChat’s admins can see them. Once the report is answered, its photos and video are removed. The answered report stays in our admins’ records, with your former account ID (a random code, not your phone number).

  Photos and video: until an admin has dealt with the report

• Reports about you

  Reports other people made about you, or about your messages, posts or listings, stay with SendChat, where the people who review reports can read them, with any copy of a post or listing they include. They no longer name your account, though a copy may keep its former ID (a random code, not your phone number).

  Until the person who reported deletes their account

• Free SendChat Pro record

  If SendChat ever gave your account free SendChat Pro, a log of each time it was given or taken back: your former account ID (a random code, not your phone number), the date and a short note.

  Kept with SendChat’s Pro records, with no end date

• Your number’s free trial

  If your number had the 60-day free trial of SendChat Pro, SendChat keeps a scrambled copy of it, locked with a secret key, so that a new account with that number starts on Free. It isn’t linked to your account and is used for nothing else.

  With no end date

• Accounts deleted for not being used

  If SendChat deleted your account because nobody used it for 12 months, it keeps a note of each of the account’s old sign-ins with that reason, so a phone or computer still holding one can say why. The note doesn’t include your name or number.

  400 days

• Live updates

  The system that delivers new messages and changes to devices keeps a copy of each update it sent, messages included. Only someone with full access to SendChat’s servers can read it.

  Up to about 3 days

• Ended sign-ins

  A note that your sign-ins have ended, so they can’t be used again.

  1 day

• Backup copies of your files

  SendChat keeps a nightly backup copy of uploaded files. Your files leave it within 7 days of being deleted.

  Up to 7 days

• Our hosting provider’s backups and logs

  Supabase, which hosts SendChat, keeps backups of SendChat’s database and technical logs, which include IP addresses.

  For the limited periods Supabase’s service sets, then deleted

• Your number in other people’s records

  Your number may stay in other people’s phone address books, which SendChat can’t change. SendChat also keeps, for each person, coded records of the numbers their address book has checked and holds; those records belong to their account. If you’re listed in the DM Book community directory (dmbook.ca), SendChat keeps a coded copy of your number until the directory removes you.

  Until they delete their account, or the directory removes you

• Other companies’ own records

  Apple and Google keep the records of any SendChat Pro purchase, and may keep records of the notifications they carried to your phones. Twilio, which sends SendChat’s sign-in codes and its warnings before an unused account is deleted, keeps records of the texts it sent. Cloudflare, which runs sendchat.ca, the security check on the sign-in screens, the Windows downloads and our file backup, keeps its own technical records, which include IP addresses. RevenueCat deletes your customer record when we ask, but may keep its own records under its policies. Our email, support@sendchat.ca, is held in Microsoft 365, Microsoft’s email service.

  Under each company’s own policies

• Your own phone backups

  SendChat leaves its saved chats and media out of your phone’s iCloud or Google backups. Backups made with older versions of SendChat may still hold them, and any backup may hold a few SendChat settings.

  You manage these in your Apple or Google account

• Your deletion email

  If you asked by email, your email and our replies stay in our mailbox as the record of your request. They hold your email address and phone number. You can ask us to delete them.

  Until you ask us to delete them

• Texts a person at SendChat sent you

  If you asked by email, a person at SendChat texted your number the deletion code, and, if your account had a two-step PIN, the text saying a deletion was asked for, from their own phone. Those texts stay on that phone only until your account is deleted, then they’re deleted. The phone’s mobile carrier, Bell, in Canada, keeps its own records of them under its own policies.

  On that phone, until your account is deleted; at Bell, under its own policies

• When the law requires it

  If we’re legally required to keep something, for example because of a court order we received before your account was deleted, we keep only that.

  Only as long as the law requires

SendChat Pro

Deleting your account doesn’t cancel a paid SendChat Pro subscription. If you pay for Pro through the App Store or Google Play, it keeps renewing, and you keep being charged, until you cancel it there.

So cancel it first:

• iPhone: open Settings, tap your name, then Subscriptions, and choose SendChat.
• Android: open Google Play, tap your profile picture, then Payments and subscriptions, then Subscriptions, and choose SendChat.
• Or, while your subscription is set to renew or in its grace period, tap Manage subscription in SendChat’s Delete account? box.

Deleting your account doesn’t refund time you’ve already paid for, unless the law requires it. Apple and Google take the payment, so refunds are theirs to decide, under their own refund policies. Ask Apple at reportaproblem.apple.com, or Google through Google Play’s refund page. If Google Play sends you to us, email support@sendchat.ca. Nothing here limits any right to a refund you have under the law where you live.

Free SendChat Pro given by SendChat ends with your account. There’s nothing to cancel.

Questions

Email support@sendchat.ca. Our Privacy Policy explains everything SendChat collects and how long it’s kept.

If you’re a parent or guardian and think a child under 13 (under 14 in Quebec) has a SendChat account, email us with the account’s phone number. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 13, or someone in Quebec under 14, we delete it.

SendChat is operated by S B Fabricating Inc. Sidney Brubacher, Privacy Officer, is the person in charge of protecting personal information at S B Fabricating Inc. You can reach our Privacy Officer at support@sendchat.ca (please put “Privacy” in the subject), or by mail, marked “Attention: Privacy Officer”, at:

If you’re not satisfied with our answer, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (priv.gc.ca) or, in Quebec, the Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec (cai.gouv.qc.ca). In Alberta or British Columbia, you can also contact your province’s Information and Privacy Commissioner.