Delete your Gratin account

A Gratin account is optional. You only ever need one for hosted sync, and it is nothing more than a username and a password; we never collect an email address. Deleting it removes everything we hold for it, and it also clears Gratin's data from every device signed in to it. If there is anything you want to keep, export it first.

If what you want is to stop syncing rather than to delete everything, you can turn sync off in the app, or cancel your plan and keep the account. Two other controls in Settings do less than deletion, and neither touches the account:

• "Start Fresh", under the About tab, erases Gratin's data on that one device and gives it a new sync code. Your account, the encrypted copy on our relay and your other devices are left alone; sign out and sign in again on that device to bring your recipes back.
• "Reset this device", under the Sync tab, does more than its name says: it erases your recipe books from our relay and from every device signed in to the account, including books you shared, and switches off any AI connector. The account itself and your sign-in are kept, so you carry on with an empty recipe book.

Deletion is for when you want nothing of yours left anywhere, on our side or on yours.

How to delete it in the app

Before you start, export anything you want to keep: Gratin exports your recipes as JSON-LD, or your whole database as a single SQLite file. Then:

1. Open Gratin on any device where you are signed in to the account.
2. Open Settings, then the Sync tab.
3. In the Account panel, choose Delete account.
4. Type your username to confirm.

That is all. There is no waiting period and no email to click.

What is deleted

On our side, deleting the account removes:

• the account and its username;
• the password and recovery-code verifiers;
• the encrypted escrow of your sync code;
• your subscription record;
• every synced copy of your recipe books on our relay, including books you shared with other people, who lose access to them; and
• the readable copy held for any AI connector you switched on.

On your side, it also removes:

• Gratin's data on the device you delete from, which is wiped as part of the deletion; and
• Gratin's data on every other device signed in to the account. Each of those wipes its own copy the next time it opens.

That is every recipe, photo, tag, grocery list, magazine, menu and meal plan, everywhere. The only copy that survives is an export you took beforehand.

What is kept and why

Almost nothing. The only records that outlive the account are payment records, and none of them are ours:

• If you bought on the website or in the desktop app, payment was processed by Polar as our merchant of record, and Polar must keep invoices and payment records for as long as tax and accounting law requires. Those records hold what Polar collected to take payment; they never held your recipes or your password, and we never see your card number.
• If you bought inside the iOS or Android app, the purchase was handled by Apple or Google, who keep their own purchase records under their own policies. We only ever received a purchase identifier, and that goes with the account.

Timing

Deletion is immediate and cannot be undone. There is no grace period and no recovery. When a plan merely lapses, the encrypted copy stays on our relay so that sync resumes if you come back; deletion is different. The copy goes with the account, and so does the copy on your devices. Export first.

If you cannot open the app

Email [email protected] with the username, from any address. Because we hold no email address for an account, we cannot verify from an email who you are, and we cannot reach your devices, so we never wipe devices on an emailed request; the in-app path is the only one that erases them. What we do, within 7 days of your email, is stop hosted sync for that account, switch off any AI connector, and remove the encrypted copy from our servers, so that nothing readable of yours remains with us. Your devices keep their own data. Anyone who later signs in to the account on a device can delete it fully from Settings there. An account that nobody can sign in to again stays as it is, a username and its verifiers with no data behind them, until someone who can sign in deletes it.

A note about your subscription

Deleting the account detaches your plan from it, but what that means for renewals and refunds depends on where you bought it:

• Polar (website or desktop app). A yearly plan is set not to renew; the time remaining on the current period is not automatically refunded. A buy-once plan is tied to the account it was bought under, so if you want to keep it, email us before you delete and we will agree how. If you are within 14 days of the first time you bought either plan, our terms of service give you a full refund on request, and deleting your account does not change that; just email us with your username.
• Apple (iOS app). Deleting your Gratin account does not cancel an Apple subscription, because only you can do that: open iOS Settings, tap your Apple Account, then Subscriptions, and cancel it there, or Apple may renew it. Refunds for Apple purchases are Apple's to give, at reportaproblem.apple.com. A buy-once purchase stays on your Apple account: if you ever create a new Gratin account, "Restore purchases" in Settings attaches it to the new one.
• Google (Android app). Cancel the subscription in the Play Store, under Subscriptions, as well. Google can refund a purchase within 48 hours; after that, email us and we will refund through the Play Console on the same 14-day rule as Polar. A buy-once purchase stays on your Google account and can be restored to a new Gratin account in the same way.

If you might come back, consider keeping the account and simply turning sync off.

More

Our terms of service and privacy policy have the rest of the picture.