Delete your account
This page explains how to delete your OptimalChinese account — the app by BrightPath Learning — what that removes, and the little that must stay.
How to delete your account
Sign in and open your account page: optimalchinese.com/account. It is the same page on the web and inside the iOS and Android apps, and it works even if your subscription has lapsed.
Choose Delete my account, type your email address to confirm — or DELETE if you signed in with Apple and chose to hide your email — and press Delete permanently.
That is all. The deletion is immediate — there is no waiting period and no way back, which is why the page offers Export my data first.
If you cannot sign in, write to contact@optimalchinese.com from the email address on the account, or use the contact form, and say you want the account deleted. We answer within a month, usually much sooner.
Delete your data without deleting the account
Sign in, open More, and choose Setup & import.
Choose Start over from nothing and confirm with Back up and wipe everything.
Every word and rule you studied, every review, note, collection and import, and your study settings are deleted. Your account, email and subscription stay as they are. A restore point is taken first, and it ages out like any backup — within about two months.
Single things can be deleted where they appear — a card, a note, a phrase, an import. For anything narrower or different, write to contact@optimalchinese.com; we answer within a month.
What is deleted
Everything the account holds, immediately and for good: your email and name, your sign-up answers and study plan, every word and rule you studied with every review, your notes, collections, imports and classroom lists, your settings, and our record of your subscription.
What is kept, and for how long
Backups — restore points that included your data age out on their own: daily ones within a week, weekly ones within about two months.
Billing records — invoices are kept for ten years because French accounting law requires it. They are payment records, not learning data.
Messages and bug reports you sent us — up to three years. Server logs — days.
One thing deletion cannot do: stop a subscription billed by the App Store or Google Play. Apple and Google own that billing relationship, so cancel it in your device's subscription settings — ideally before deleting the account. A subscription billed by card on the web is cancelled for you as part of the deletion.
The full detail of what we collect and why is in the privacy policy.