Delete your Web Highlights account

Last updated: 2026-09-24

You can delete your Web Highlights account yourself, at any time, from inside the app — no request, no waiting. If you can no longer sign in, e-mail us instead. This page describes both routes, what is deleted, and what we are required to keep — and how to delete individual items without deleting your account.

Delete your account in the app

Sign in to the web app at app.web-highlights.com, then:

  1. Open Settings — the gear icon at the bottom of the sidebar. On a phone, pull up the handle of the bottom dock and tap your profile row instead.
  2. Choose the Account tab.
  3. In the Danger zone at the bottom, click Delete Account.
  4. Type the e-mail address of your account to confirm. The Delete my account button stays disabled until the address matches exactly.
  5. Click Delete my account. If a paid subscription is still running, nothing is deleted yet: you are asked to cancel it first. Otherwise your account and its data are deleted immediately, and you are signed out.

Deletion happens on our server the moment you confirm. There is no grace period and nothing to restore afterwards — if you want to keep your highlights, export a backup first under Settings → Backup → Export.

If you cannot sign in: request deletion by e-mail

Lost your password or access to your Google account? Send an e-mail to marius@web-highlights.com with the subject "Delete my account".

  • Write from the e-mail address your account is registered to. The sender address is how we verify that the request comes from the account holder; we cannot act on a request from a different address.
  • We reply to that address to confirm the request, delete the account with the same server routine the in-app button uses, and confirm again once it is done.
  • We handle deletion requests without undue delay and at the latest within one month — the period Art. 12(3) GDPR sets for requests like this.

What is deleted

Deleting your account removes from our live systems, at once:

  • Your account record: e-mail address, display name and password hash.
  • Your sign-in identity. If you signed in with Google, the user record that Firebase Authentication, our sign-in provider, keeps for your account is deleted in the same routine.
  • All highlights and the notes attached to them.
  • Your library — saved pages, PDFs and videos — together with the page contents we stored for reader mode and search.
  • Files you uploaded. The PDF documents themselves are removed from our file storage, not just the library entries that point to them.
  • Tags and collections.
  • Settings synced to your account, including extension settings.
  • Learning data: flashcards and review progress.
  • AI chats.
  • The change log that keeps your devices in sync.

This cannot be undone. Any browser or phone still signed in is signed out at its next sync attempt.

What we keep, and for how long

  • Billing records. If you ever paid for a subscription, the invoices and payment records stay with Paddle, our merchant of record, and with us for the retention period German tax and commercial law require — currently up to 10 years (§ 147 AO). They contain your name, billing address and e-mail address, never your highlights or content.
  • Backups. Copies of your data in our routine database backups are overwritten in the normal backup rotation, within 90 days at most.
  • Server logs. Request logs that may contain your IP address are kept only as long as security and abuse prevention need them, as described in the privacy policy.

Running subscriptions

You cannot delete your account while a paid subscription is still running — the app stops and offers to take you to the billing provider’s cancellation flow first. Deleting your account does not cancel a paid subscription and does not refund it, because the subscription lives with Paddle. Cancel it under Settings → Upgrade & Billing, or e-mail us and we cancel it for you. A lifetime plan never blocks deletion.

Delete individual items without deleting your account

You do not have to delete your account to remove data. In the app and in the web app, every item below has a Delete action in its menu:

  • A saved page. Its highlights and notes are deleted with it; if it is a PDF you uploaded, the file is removed from our file storage as well.
  • A single highlight, together with the note attached to it.
  • A note on its own. The highlight it belongs to stays.
  • A collection. The pages in it stay in your library; they are just no longer filed there.

A deletion takes effect on our server as soon as your device syncs, and reaches your other devices from there. Copies in routine backups are overwritten in the normal rotation described above.

Questions

Anything unclear? Write to marius@web-highlights.com or see the support page. Your rights under the GDPR — access, rectification, portability and erasure — are described in the privacy policy.