Delete Your Account - JOURNAL, Personal Diary

Last updated: 03/05/2026

This page explains how to request deletion of the account you use with JOURNAL, Personal Diary (the "App"), published on Google Play by Carry Studios.

By default, the App stores everything on your device only. Account deletion is therefore only relevant if you have signed in (free) and/or opted into Cloud Sync, App-Settings Backup, or have an active Premium subscription.

How to Delete Your Account from Inside the App

The fastest and recommended way is from inside the App itself:

1. Open JOURNAL, Personal Diary on your Android device.
2. Tap the gear icon (Settings) on the home screen.
3. Tap Account (first row under the "Account" section).
4. If you are not already signed in, sign in. Account deletion requires an active session and uses Google Sign-In or email/password.
5. On the Account page, tap the ⋮ icon (three vertical dots, top-right - "More options").
6. Tap Delete Account (shown in red with a trash-can icon).
7. A confirmation dialog appears: "Are you sure you want to delete your account? All cloud data will be removed permanently. Your local diary data will be preserved." Tick the acknowledgment checkbox.
8. Tap Confirm. (The secondary action is Cancel.)
9. A "Deleting account…" spinner is shown; on success a confirmation reads "Account deleted. Local data preserved."

If your sign-in session is too old, the App will ask you to re-authenticate before completing the deletion (this is a Firebase security requirement for destructive operations).

How to Delete Your Account by Email

If you cannot use the in-app flow - for example, you no longer have access to the device, or your session is locked - write to us at:

carrystudios@gmail.com

Send the request from the email address linked to your account, with the subject line "Delete my JOURNAL account". Include the email address used to sign in to the App (if different from the sender). Requests are handled manually; we may ask you to confirm ownership of the account before proceeding.

What Is Deleted

When you delete your account, the following are removed from our servers:

• the account record (email, UID, sign-in providers) held in Firebase Authentication;
• all cloud-synced diary entries (text, mood, tags, day blocks, day emoji and similar metadata);
• all cloud-synced attachments - both the index and the underlying encrypted photo and voice memo blobs in Cloud Storage under your user folder, recursively;
• the encryption metadata used by end-to-end encryption (encryption mode, passphrase salt and sentinel). The local cached encryption key is also forgotten on the device.
• the purchase history and Thought Points ledger;
• sync state (per-device watermarks, durable wipe job records);
• the subscription mirror and its nested audit events;
• the App-Settings Backup document;
• the user profile document itself.

The RevenueCat subscription alias is also dropped, and the local subscription mirror on your device is cleared.

Cascading deletion of Storage objects and Firestore documents typically completes within minutes; in rare cases it may take up to a few days for all replicas to be purged.

What Is Kept and for How Long

Nothing is retained application-side after account deletion. All user-controlled data listed above is removed immediately.

Some platform-level records may be retained by the underlying providers, outside Carry Studios's control:

• Firebase Authentication may retain minimal anti-abuse / fraud signals per Google's policies.
• Google Play retains its own purchase, refund and tax records as the merchant of record for in-app purchases and subscriptions.
• RevenueCat retains subscription audit logs per its own privacy policy.

Retention periods for those records are governed by each provider's privacy policy and are not set by us.

What Stays on Your Device

Account deletion only affects data we hold on our servers. Your local diary data is never touched by account deletion - the on-device database (all diaries, days, photos, voice memos, mood, tags) and your app preferences stay exactly as they were before deletion.

Inside the App, three deletion actions are kept distinct:

• Delete Account (this flow): wipes cloud data + Firebase account. Local data preserved.
• Clear cloud data (separate item in the same Account ⋮ menu): wipes only the cloud copy of your diary content; the account stays; local data preserved.
• Delete a diary (home screen → long-press a diary → Delete): removes that diary locally only.

To remove local data:

• to remove all data the App stores on your device, uninstall the App, or open Android Settings → Apps → JOURNAL, Personal Diary → Storage → Clear data.

Uninstalling or clearing data does not by itself remove cloud data - use Delete Account for that.

Optional Google Drive Backups

If you have ever taken a manual backup to your own Google Drive, those .zip files live in your Drive under the App's restricted scope. They are not visible to us and are not removed by account deletion. To delete them, open Google Drive directly and remove the files yourself.

Cancelling a Subscription Is Not the Same as Deleting an Account

Cancelling your Premium subscription stops new diary content from being uploaded but does not by itself delete data already in the cloud. To fully erase cloud data, use Delete Account as described above, or use Replace cloud with this device inside the App to overwrite cloud content with the current local state.

Questions

For any question about this process, contact carrystudios@gmail.com.

You can also review our full Privacy Policy for the underlying data flows and your rights under GDPR / UK GDPR.