Account Deletion: Your Data, Your Choice

I built Jottings on a simple principle: this is your space. Your thoughts, your links, your photos, your writing—all of it belongs to you, not us. That's why one of the first features we shipped wasn't something flashy or feature-rich. It was something quiet but essential: the ability to export your data and delete your account whenever you want.

Why This Matters

Think about the platforms you use daily. How many of them make it genuinely easy to leave?

Most social media platforms bury the delete option three menus deep. Email services hold your data hostage with archaic export formats. Some platforms don't let you export at all—your years of content are trapped, accessible only if you keep paying or stay logged in.

That's not respect. That's hostage-taking dressed up as a business model.

When I started building Jottings, I wanted something different. I wanted to build a platform where the default assumption is that you own your stuff. Not us. Not the advertisers. You.

Data Export: Your Escape Hatch

This is why we made data export a core feature from day one. In your account settings, you can download everything—all your jots, all your site settings, all your metadata. We give it to you in clean, portable formats: JSON that's easy to parse, HTML archives you can read in any browser, and markdown files if you want to move your writing elsewhere.

We don't rate-limit it. We don't charge for it. We don't make you wait. You click a button, and within minutes, your entire archive is in your hands.

Why? Because the moment you want to leave, I want that to be possible. I want you to be able to take everything and move to another platform, another service, or keep it private on your own computer. No permission required. No strings attached.

This isn't altruism—it's the only ethical way to build trust. When users know they can leave, they choose to stay.

Deletion: No Questions Asked

Account deletion should be just as frictionless. At Jottings, we don't ask why. We don't offer you a "deactivation period" to change your mind. We don't send you guilt-trip emails. We delete your data (except what we're legally required to keep for tax or regulatory reasons) and move on.

Your public site becomes inaccessible. Your jots are gone. Your sites are removed. Within 30 days, everything's been purged from our systems.

I think a lot about what it means to actually respect user choice. Real respect isn't just about allowing deletion—it's about making it simple, permanent, and free. No dark patterns. No "are you sure?" dialogs designed to make you doubt your decision.

The Hard Part: Why More Platforms Don't Do This

Here's the thing that surprised me when we launched: nearly every competitor takes the opposite approach. They build friction into leaving. They make exports complicated. They make deletion slow.

Why? Because every user who leaves is a failure in their metrics. Every deletion is a number that went down. From a pure business perspective, making it hard to leave maximizes short-term retention.

But I think that's short-sighted.

The platforms I trust most—the ones I actually want to use—are the ones that make me feel like I could leave at any time. That feeling of control, that knowledge that I'm not trapped, somehow makes me more loyal, not less. I stay because I choose to, not because I can't afford to leave.

Building with Consent

Making deletion easy also forces you to build differently. It means every feature we add has to be worth it. We can't rely on lock-in or switching costs. We have to earn your continued use.

It means we can't treat your data as a product to be sold or monetized. We can't build an empire on behavioral data. We have to be sustainable through honest means—through subscriptions to features that people actually want, through pricing that reflects the value we provide.

That constraint is liberating, actually. It pushes us to focus on what matters: making a tool that's genuinely useful, that respects your time and attention, that doesn't waste either on dark patterns or engagement hacks.

What We Keep, What We Delete

To be transparent: we do keep some things even after deletion. Logs that show you accessed the platform (for security purposes). Payment records if you had a Pro subscription (for tax compliance). Aggregate analytics that don't identify you.

But your content? Gone. Your personal information? Gone. Your site's history? Gone. We're not mining it. We're not keeping it "just in case." It's deleted.

We publish our full data deletion policy because I think it should be readable and understandable. No lawyer speak. No loopholes. Just: here's what we delete, here's what we keep for legal reasons, and here's how long we keep it.

The Invitation

I'm not saying this to sound noble. I'm saying it because I think the web is better when users feel in control. When your relationship with a platform is built on consent rather than lock-in. When you know you could leave, but you choose to stay.

If you're thinking about moving to Jottings, that choice should feel safe. Export your data whenever you want. Bring it with you. If things change—if you decide it's not for you, if you want to go indie, if you just want to disappear from the internet for a while—you can do that without leaving pieces of yourself behind.

Your data is yours. Your choice is yours. That's the promise.

Want to explore Jottings? You can create an account free of charge and take it for a spin. No credit card needed, no lock-in. Just a simple, respectful space for your thoughts.