In short
Closing your account is a three-step act with a built-in pause. You type DELETE MY ACCOUNT in your account settings, open the link that is emailed to you within the hour, and from that moment the deletion is scheduled for 48 hours later. A fresh sign-in during those 48 hours cancels it, and so does a link in the same email. Only when the 48 hours pass with no sign-in is the account removed.
The thing to understand before you start is what “removed” means for objects that exist outside the platform. A printed Linxy Mark or Recovery Mark does not vanish when your account does; it keeps existing on paper, and a scan of it will say the account it belonged to has been closed rather than leading anywhere. Financial records are kept in an anonymised form because the law requires it. Everything else that was yours is deleted.
Three things this is not
Delete Account is the most final control in the product, and it is regularly reached for by people who wanted something smaller. Before you start, check that one of these is not what you actually mean:
| You want to | The control is | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Stop this phone signing in as you | Revoke the device | Settings → Security → Manage Devices. See Your devices |
| Stop paying | Cancel the membership | On the website, on your billing page (lnxy.me/user/billing) — the App does not handle billing. The account and everything in it stay |
| Stop hearing from someone | Mute, block or end the Connection | Inside that Connection. See Ending a connection |
| Erase the account and all its data | Delete Account | Settings → Account → Delete Account, and this page |
The steps, and where the pause is
- In the App, Settings → Account → Delete Account. This opens your account settings on lnxy.me inside the App, already signed in. The same page is reachable by signing in to lnxy.me in a browser.
- Type DELETE MY ACCOUNT exactly. A password is not asked for — accounts that only ever sign in with LinxyPass have none — so the typed phrase stands in for it. Anything else in the box is refused.
- Check your email. A message arrives with a link that schedules the deletion. The link works once and expires in sixty minutes; if it lapses, start again from step 1. Until you open it, nothing has been scheduled and nothing will happen.
- Open the link. You are told the account is scheduled for deletion in 48 hours, and that signing in cancels it. The App does not sign you out at this point, on purpose: a fresh sign-in is how you would change your mind, and being already signed in does not count as one.
Changing your mind
Two things cancel a scheduled deletion, and both are deliberately easy. A fresh sign-in — to the App or to lnxy.me, by any method, including a One-Tap sign-in from a Brand card — cancels it the moment the sign-in succeeds, and you are told so. The same email that scheduled the deletion also carries a cancel link that works without signing in, for the case where you no longer have a device to sign in from. Either one returns the account to exactly where it was.
If you want the deletion to go ahead, the only thing you must do is not sign in for 48 hours. Opening the App on a phone that is still signed in from before is not a sign-in; signing in anew is.
What happens when the 48 hours end
Once the scheduled time has passed, the removal runs automatically within the hour. It is not a single delete. Around a hundred tables hold something of yours, and each is handled in one of four ways, chosen table by table rather than by a rule:
| Handling | Applied to | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Deleted | Your profile, Connections, messages, media, events, passes, devices, sites, settings — the bulk of everything | It was yours and nobody else needs it |
| Anonymised | Financial records: payments, holds, transactions | Statutory retention. The record survives; your identity is removed from it |
| Tombstoned | Your Linxy Marks and your Recovery Mark | They exist on paper. See below |
| Preserved | A small number of platform ledgers that must never lose a row | They hold no personal content, and losing a row would harm other people’s Marks |
The account row itself is removed last, and only if every step before it succeeded. A removal that hits a problem stops with the account still present and is retried until the problem is fixed — you are never left with a deleted login and orphaned data. After removal, nothing is recoverable: there is no undo and no support request that restores it. The email address is free to create a fresh, empty account.
What happens to printed Marks
A Linxy Mark you printed keeps existing after your account is gone, and someone will eventually scan it. If the record behind it were simply deleted, that scan would dead-end, which looks like the platform failing rather than an account being closed. So Marks are tombstoned: the record stays, ownership is cleared, and a scan resolves to one message — This Linxy Mark is no longer active. The account it belonged to has been closed. Nothing you attached to it is delivered, and the Mark’s identifier is never issued to anyone else.
The same applies to your Recovery Mark. If you have one printed, it becomes a piece of paper that says the account is closed. It cannot be used to recover anything, because there is nothing left to recover.
Symptoms, causes and fixes
| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| “Type DELETE MY ACCOUNT exactly to continue” | The phrase was not typed exactly — case, spacing, or a stray character | Type it again as shown |
| No email arrived | It went to the address on the account, which may not be the one you expect, or to spam | Check the address under Account; check spam; request again |
| The link says it has expired or been used | More than sixty minutes passed, or it was opened already | Start again from Delete Account |
| I opened the link and my account is still there | By design — nothing is removed for 48 hours | Do not sign in; wait |
| The deletion was canceled without me doing anything | Something signed in as you — another device, or a One-Tap sign-in | Revoke devices you no longer hold, then request again |
| I want it gone now, not in two days | The grace period cannot be shortened | There is no faster path; it exists to protect the account holder |
| Someone scanned my old Mark and saw a closure message | Marks are tombstoned rather than deleted | Expected. Recall or destroy the printed pieces if that message is unwelcome |