Remove an account in the app
- Open Zen Inbox
- Go to Settings
- In the accounts section, tap the mailbox you want to remove, then tap Remove account
- Confirm
On your phone, this deletes that account's emails, folders and sign-in from the app right away, and its Planner cards the next time the app starts (right away if it was your last account). Some things stay: attachments you downloaded stay in the app's private storage (uninstalling the app removes them); addresses the app remembered from that account to suggest while you type stay until you remove your last account; and the senders you chose to always show pictures for stay until you tap Forget allowed senders in Settings. Planner backup files, saved by you or made automatically, stay on your phone until you delete them (the app keeps only the 7 newest automatic ones).
On our servers, this phone or computer stops getting notifications for that mailbox. If no other phone or Linux computer is left that our server sends that mailbox's notifications to, we also ask Google or Microsoft to stop the new-mail connection and delete the account record, including your encrypted sign-in tokens. A Windows PC that still has the mailbox does not prevent this; its app asks to register the mailbox again the next time it starts there, and a registration our server accepts sets the record up again.
When you remove the last account on a phone, that phone's device record is deleted too. The one exception: if you bought Premium on that phone, we keep its Google Play subscription details so Premium keeps working, but after 90 days without app activity we remove the lists of connected email addresses and record IDs. If the Premium status saved on that phone's record is complimentary or shared from another of your devices, the record also names the address it came through (and, for complimentary, our note), and that clean-up does not remove it.
Other connected mailboxes keep their mail and Planner cards. Three things can change for them: if your complimentary Premium, or Premium shared from another of your devices, came through the mailbox you remove and nothing else gives this phone Premium, Premium ends on this phone and the Planner is switched off; features we switched on or off for you through that mailbox go back to what your remaining mailboxes get; and if Calendar sync used that account, Calendar sync is switched off.
What removing an account does not delete
This is what removing an account leaves behind. Email us (below) and we will delete what we hold, with these exceptions: we keep a Google Play purchase so Premium keeps working, and take that mailbox's address off its record (one case is missed today: a purchase record that our clean-up has already emptied of its mailbox addresses, after 90 days without app activity, cannot be found by the deletion, and if its saved Premium status still names your address, as it can when Premium was complimentary or shared through that mailbox, the address can stay on that record); we keep our records of Google Play subscription notices, which hold a phone's random ID but no email address; in our admin history we replace your address with a masked form in the entries filed under it (an entry filed under something else, such as the record of a deleted group you were in, can still show it), and add a record of the deletion with that masked form and a one-way fingerprint of your address; for about a month we keep a note with the random IDs of the devices that had the mailbox and the masked address, so the app on them removes it; daily counts of the address suggestions a Windows or Linux computer asked for, kept under its random ID, delete themselves about 8 days later; and server logs and backup copies expire by themselves. Google's purchase history and the events in your own calendar are not on our servers, so this deletion does not touch them.
- Google Play subscription details — if you bought Premium on that phone, we keep its Google Play subscription details so Premium keeps working, but after 90 days without app activity we remove the lists of connected email addresses and record IDs. If the Premium status saved on that phone's record is complimentary or shared from another of your devices, the record also names the address it came through (and, for complimentary, our note), and that clean-up does not remove it.
- Notification records — the IDs of emails we notified you about (no email content). Deleted automatically, usually within two days.
- Server logs — deleted automatically after 30 days.
- Crash reports in Sentry — send us the support ID shown under Settings → Help & Support → Report a problem.
- Emails you sent to support, including card reports.
- Calendar events the app added — they are in your own Google or Outlook calendar. On your phone, when you remove the account Calendar sync uses and the app has a record of events it added there, it asks whether to remove them. If you keep them, and in every other case (another account removed, an account removed in the Windows or Linux app, or a deletion we make for you), removing an account leaves them in your calendar for you to delete.
- Google Play purchase history — kept by Google; cancel your subscription in Google Play.
- Zen AI usage counts — kept until you ask us to delete them.
- Copies in our database backups — they expire within 98 days.
- Complimentary Premium and personal settings — until we remove them.
- Our admin history — records of changes we made for your account, naming your address.
Uninstalling the app deletes what it stored on your phone, except Planner backup files (the ones you saved and the automatic ones), but it does not delete anything on our servers. Remove your accounts first, or email us. After a deletion we make for you, Zen Inbox on each phone or computer we had on record for that mailbox removes it the next time the app opens and checks in there, if that is within 30 days; an older version of the app keeps the mailbox, so remove it in the app there. Signing in to it again adds it back.
Ask us to delete everything
Email support@zeninbox.ca from the mailbox you want deleted, with the subject "Data deletion request". Include your support ID if you have it.
Within 30 days we will delete what we hold for that mailbox and reply to confirm. The exceptions: if you bought Premium on a phone, we keep that purchase so Premium keeps working, and take that mailbox's address off its record (one case is missed today: a purchase record that our clean-up has already emptied of its mailbox addresses, after 90 days without app activity, cannot be found by the deletion, and if its saved Premium status still names your address, as it can when Premium was complimentary or shared through that mailbox, the address can stay on that record); we keep our records of Google Play subscription notices, which hold a phone's random ID but no email address; in the entries of our admin history filed under your address, the address is replaced with a masked form, not deleted (an entry filed under something else, such as the record of a deleted group you were in, can still show it), and a record of the deletion is added with that masked form and a one-way fingerprint of your address; for about a month we keep a note with the random IDs of the devices that had the mailbox and the masked address, so the app on them removes it; daily counts of the address suggestions a Windows or Linux computer asked for, kept under its random ID, delete themselves about 8 days later; server logs and backup copies expire by themselves; and calendar events and Google's purchase history are in your own accounts. Copies in our database backups expire within 98 days.
Account records are also deleted automatically after 90 days without app activity, or after 30 days if your phone can no longer receive our notifications.
Stop access right away
You can cut off Zen Inbox's access to your mailbox at any time, even without the app:
- Google: myaccount.google.com/connections
- Microsoft: account.live.com/consent/Manage (work or school accounts: ask your administrator)