Deleting your user account is a step after which your login, your personal settings and your access to every customer account you were invited to all disappear from gas. The application does not do it straight away: first it schedules the deletion and gives you 30 days to change your mind. During that time you can return the account to its original state with a single button; once the period is over, that is no longer possible.
What exactly you are deleting
In gas, the word account means two different things, and on top of that it is easy to confuse with unlinking a profile from a network. Before you delete anything, find the row in the table that you really need.
| What you want to do | Where it is done | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Delete your user account | Settings → User profile → Privacy and your data | Your login to gas and your access to all customer accounts disappear. This article covers that. |
| Stop seeing one customer account | Settings → User profile → Customer accounts, the Unlink account button | You lose access to one customer account. Your user account and the other customer accounts stay. |
| Close the whole company's customer account | Write through the contact form | It cannot be done in the application. The customer account belongs to the company and the subscription is tied to it. |
| Remove one profile from a customer account | Settings → Customer account → Linked accounts, the Unlink account button | One page, one profile or one ad account disappears from the customer account. User accounts are not affected. |
Deleting a user account is irreversible once the grace period is over and cannot be replaced by anything from the other rows of the table. If you only care about one customer account or one network, use the relevant row. If you are not sure, write through the contact form first.
Before you start
- Have your gas password ready. The application asks for it in the confirmation dialog even if you normally log in through Google, Meta or Apple. If you do not know your password, set a new one using the link on the login screen; the procedure is described in the article Forgot password.
- Download your data. On the same page there is a Download all my data card with a Download export button. During the grace period you will no longer be able to reach it, and after the account is deleted it cannot be created at all.
- If you are the only Administrator in a customer account, hand that role over to a colleague. You change the role in Settings → Customer account → Users. Without that, the team is left with no administrator and nobody there will be able to invite more people, change roles or manage linked accounts.
- Agree on the profiles you connected yourself. After the account is deleted they stay with the customer account, but with no owner. A colleague who has access to the profile on the given network will have to connect it again. The context is explained in the article Who linked the account and why I cannot see it.
Procedure
- Open Settings → User profile → Privacy and your data.
- Scroll down to the What you can do with your data section and find the Delete account card.
- Click the red Schedule deletion button. The Delete account? dialog opens; it cannot be closed by clicking next to it, only with the Cancel button.
- In the Enter your password to confirm field, type your gas password. The eye icon on the left of the field lets you show the typed password and check it.
- Optionally write why you are leaving. The field is not mandatory and takes at most 500 characters.
- Confirm with the Schedule deletion button.
What happens next
The dialog turns into a green confirmation, Account scheduled for deletion, with the exact date until which the account can be restored. A countdown runs below it: after roughly ten seconds the application signs you out by itself. You can also sign out right away with the Log in again button.
An email with the subject "Your gas account deletion is scheduled for (date)" arrives at your email address, containing the date and the steps for restoring the account. Seven days before the end of the period one more reminder arrives, with the subject "We will delete your gas account in 7 days".
What happens during the grace period
- The account still exists, but you cannot get into the application. After logging in, the Welcome back screen appears instead of the overview, and you have to decide: either restore the account or sign out. This also applies to direct links and to other devices where you stayed logged in.
- Nothing changes for your colleagues in the customer accounts for now. Data keeps coming in and the profiles you connected keep working.
- Automatic emails from gas, typically scheduled reports, may keep arriving during the period. They stop only when the account is permanently deleted.
- The Activity history section contains an Account deletion scheduled entry with the date and time.
How to restore the account
- Open the gas login page and log in as usual. You can also use the Restore account button in the email you received; it leads to the same place.
- Instead of the overview, the Welcome back screen appears with the date the deletion is scheduled for.
- Click Restore and continue.
- A green message, Account has been restored., appears and the application lets you through to the page you wanted to open.
There is nothing else to set up: the account, roles, links and settings are in the state they were in. If you are still hesitating, choose Sign out on the same screen. The deletion stays scheduled and you can decide at your next login.
What is deleted once the period is over
Permanent deletion happens shortly after the period ends, at the latest the following day. The following disappear for good:
- login credentials and the whole user profile (name, email address, language, appearance settings, graph and table settings),
- your membership in all customer accounts, including the role you had in them,
- all your logged-in devices,
- report subscriptions that were emailed to you,
- goals you created in customer accounts (they also disappear for colleagues who see them in the account),
- files you uploaded to customer accounts,
- consents you gave and your privacy settings.
What stays, on the other hand:
- the customer accounts themselves, their data, history and subscription,
- profiles, pages and ad accounts linked to the customer account, including the figures gas downloaded while you were using the account,
- a record that the deletion took place, because we have to be able to prove that we handled your request.
Nothing is deleted on the networks themselves when you delete your gas account. Your pages, profiles, channels and ad accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Google, YouTube, Pinterest, TikTok and Sklik do not change in any way.
What happens to the profiles you connected
The profiles stay with the customer account along with their data history, but they lose their owner. In Settings → Customer account → Linked accounts, the Who links the account column shows Nobody for them and the whole row is highlighted as an error.
With some networks the data download stops immediately, with others it keeps running for a while until the access to the network expires. But there is no longer anyone who can renew it, because the access was tied to your account. The solution is the same in both cases: a colleague who has access to the profile on the given network connects it again and, while selecting it, chooses to take ownership of the profile. The profile's history and settings are preserved this way. It is the same situation as when a colleague who connected the profiles leaves the company, and it is described in detail in the article Who linked the account and why I cannot see it.
Common problems
After logging in the application will not let me through and shows Welcome back
The account has a deletion scheduled; until you cancel it, you cannot get into the application. Click Restore and continue and you will continue where you were heading. If you are not sure about restoring, choose Sign out; the deletion stays scheduled and you can decide later.
The application says the password I entered is incorrect
The dialog requires your gas password, not your Facebook, Google or Apple password, even if you log in through them. If you do not remember your password, close the dialog with the Cancel button, sign out and set a new password on the login screen using forgot password. Then try the deletion again.
The Schedule deletion button cannot be clicked
The account most likely already has a deletion scheduled and the application will not allow it a second time. You can verify this by signing out and logging in again: if the Welcome back screen appears instead of the overview, a deletion is scheduled and you will see the date right there. If you want to get back to normal work, choose Restore and continue.
I still want to download my data, but the deletion is already scheduled
During the grace period you cannot get into the settings, so the export cannot be created. Proceed as follows:
- Log in and on the Welcome back screen click Restore and continue.
- Open Settings → User profile → Privacy and your data and in the Download all my data card click Download export.
- Once you have the file saved, schedule the deletion again. The period is counted from the new confirmation.
I only want to leave one customer account, not everything
Open Settings → User profile → Customer accounts and choose Unlink account on the relevant row. Your user account stays and you keep working in the other customer accounts. Only the administrator of that account can let you back in, with a new invitation.
We want to close the whole company account, not just one user account
A customer account cannot be closed in the application, because the subscription and the whole team's data are tied to it. Write through the contact form from the email address you use in gas and state the name of the customer account. Deleting individual user accounts does not close the customer account.
I just want to unlink Facebook or Google from gas
You do not need to delete your account for that. You manage the links to individual services in Settings → Connected services, and the individual profiles of a customer account in Settings → Customer account → Linked accounts. Your user account and your access to the application stay.
A profile shows Nobody in the Who links the account column
The profile was connected by someone whose account no longer exists, for example a colleague who deleted their account or whose account was closed. gas therefore has no way to renew access to the profile. A colleague who has access to it on the given network connects the profile again and, while selecting it, chooses to take ownership of the profile.
My colleagues stopped receiving data from profiles I connected
If you deleted your account, the profiles were left without an owner and the data download will stop sooner or later. A new owner has to be added manually: a colleague starts the network link again and takes ownership of the profile. The measured history stays; only the days when the link was not working will be missing.
Nobody in the team has the Administrator role
This happens when the only Administrator of a customer account deleted their account. The other team members still see the data, but they cannot get into the customer account settings and cannot invite new people or change roles. The application will not fix this by itself; write through the contact form and we will add the Administrator role to the account for you. Next time it is safer to hand the role over before deleting the account.
I received an email about a scheduled deletion, but I did not request anything like that
It means somebody confirmed the deletion with your password. Log in, click Restore and continue on the Welcome back screen and then change your password right away in Settings → User profile → Password & access. Also check your logged-in devices and sign out any you do not recognise. Please report the situation to us through the contact form.
I keep receiving emails from gas during the grace period
Scheduled reports and other automatic messages are sent as long as the account exists. They stop after the account is permanently deleted. If you do not want to receive them earlier, restore the account, turn the subscriptions off in Settings → User profile → Report subscriptions, and then schedule the deletion again.
The restore failed and an error appeared
Most often this is because you restored the account in another window or on another device in the meantime, so this attempt had nothing left to restore. Close the window, log in again and check whether the application lets you into the overview. If the error appears a second time as well, try again in a few minutes and then write through the contact form.
The period is over and I want my account back
After permanent deletion the account can no longer be restored, the data is gone. The only way into gas is a new account, which the administrator of the customer account creates for you with a new email invitation. However, the history of your personal settings, goals and subscriptions will not come back.