Closing accounts of inactive users

On Wattpad, you have the option to close your account at any time. For instructions on how to close your account, please see our Help Centre article: Closing your Wattpad account. 

When we close your account

Sometimes, we will close your account on your behalf. We only do this if:

• You have violated our Terms of Service, Code of Conduct, or Content Guidelines (each a “violation”); or
• You have not logged into your account in five (5) years (“inactivity”).

If we close your account due to a violation, you will receive a notification that we are closing your account and why. You will not be able to reopen your account on your own. For more details, please see our Help Centre article: Is Wattpad deleting stories?

If we close your account due to inactivity, we’ll notify you by email 30 days before we close your account. After that, you won’t hear from us again (unless you choose to reopen your account or create a new account). For information on how to reopen or create a new account, please see our articles Reopening/reactivating an account or Creating an account.

What happens when your account is closed

When your account is closed, your account will disappear from Wattpad. Your profile, stories, and reading lists will not be publicly available anymore. Your comments will remain on Wattpad, but will be anonymized. To reopen your account, simply log in within approximately six (6) months from the date your account is closed.

We will keep all of your account data for a period of time when you close your account in case you’d like to reactivate your account at a later time. If after approximately six (6) months you have not reactivated your account, and you do not have an active subscription or any purchased Coins on the account, your account will be permanently closed and no longer retrievable and all data associated with it will be purged. For details on how your account data is processed, please visit the Privacy Policy here: https://policies.wattpad.com/privacy. For details on data purging, please scroll to the bottom of this page. 

Inactivity Exception

• If your account contains coins that you’ve purchased from us or has an active subscription, then we won’t close your account due to inactivity, though we reserve the right to close it for violations. If you want your account closed, you’ll need to spend your coins, cancel your subscription, and close your account by yourself. Please see our article: Closing your Wattpad account.
• If your account contains published stories, then we won’t close your account due to inactivity, but it can still be closed for violations.

What happens to your account data when you close your account

We  temporarily maintain account data for approximately six (6) months when a user closes their account. This allows users to easily reactivate the account at a later time. If after approximately six (6) months the account is not reactivated, there is no active subscription, or any purchased Coins on the account, the account and all data will be permanently deleted. Once an account has been permanently deleted, here is what happened to the account data:

  *Anonymized means this data still exists within our servers, but it is no longer attached to your personally identifiable data (i.e. username/email).