Deleting your googlymaps account
This page explains how to delete your googlymaps account, what happens to your data when you do, and how long anything survives.
If you only want to remove one pin rather than your whole account, you can do that on its own. Scroll to Deleting a single pin below.
How to ask us to delete your account
Email [email protected] from the address your account uses, with the word delete somewhere in the message. You do not have to explain why, and we will not ask.
That is the whole process. We reply to confirm, and the deletion runs within 7 days of your request.
Send it from the address on the account. It is how we know the request is really yours, and it is the only check we make. If you cannot use that address any more, write from any address and say so, and we will find another way to confirm it is you.
What is deleted
| What | When it goes |
|---|---|
| Your account (email address, internal account name, account status, and the timestamp recording that you passed the age check) | Purged within 7 days of the request |
| Your published pins, meaning the photograph, the coordinates and the accuracy | Removed from the public map immediately, and deleted from storage within 7 days |
| Perceptual hashes of your accepted photos, used to spot duplicates | Deleted with the account |
| Your points and your place on the chart | Gone with the account. The chart never showed your name in the first place |
What survives, and why
Being straight about this matters more than the list being short.
| What | How long | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Photographs of pins you deleted yourself before closing the account | 14 days from when you deleted the pin, then permanently removed | The appeal window. Nobody can see them during this period, including you |
| Verification records (the verdict, confidence scores, safety flags, and the model's description of the object) | 6 months from the verdict | Kept even when the photograph itself is gone, so we can audit how the automated checks behaved |
| Moderation, report, appeal and enforcement records | 6 months after the case is resolved | So a decision can be reviewed, and so removed content can be recognised if it is submitted again |
| The record that you accepted the Terms and the Privacy Policy | Kept | The link to you is removed. What remains names a document, a version and a moment, and nobody |
| A one-way hash of a banned identity, only if your account was permanently banned | Kept | Otherwise a ban could be escaped by deleting the account and signing up again. It cannot be reversed into your details |
Nothing on that list can be used to contact you or to work out who you were.
Your pins were always anonymous
Deleting your account does not "unmask" anything, because nothing was ever masked. A published pin carries the photograph, the location and the accuracy, and no name, no picture, no handle and no code that would let anyone connect two pins to the same person. There is no profile page anywhere in googlymaps.
Deleting a single pin
You do not need to delete your account to remove one pin. Open the pin, choose to delete it, and it leaves the public map immediately. The photograph is removed from storage after 14 days, and nobody can see it in the meantime.
Deleting some of your data without closing your account
Write to [email protected] and say what you want removed. Depending on where you live you may also have a formal right to erasure, and the Privacy Policy sets out those rights and how to use them.
Questions
[email protected] reaches a person. It is the same address for support, privacy requests, reports and appeals.
The full detail behind everything above is in the Privacy Policy, in the sections on how long data is kept and on your rights.
Last update: 2026-08-27 AWST