PulseDeleting your account
How to delete, what data is deleted, and how long anything is kept afterwards.
You can delete your Pulse account yourself from the app. Deleting it loses the account and the notes and transcripts attached to it, and it cannot be undone. This article explains the steps, what is deleted and what remains, and how data is handled afterwards.
Deleting an account permanently loses the notes, transcripts and folders it held. There is no way to restore them. If there is anything you want to keep, export it or move it to another account first.
Before you delete
- Export the notes you want to keep — Settings > Profile — you can export to CSV from there. For the steps, see Exporting notes in bulk. The exported file arrives by email.
- Move them first if moving to another account — to carry notes over to an account on a new email address, follow Moving notes from another account before deleting. They cannot be moved afterwards.
- Cancel your paid plan — where a subscription is still in place, cancel it first from Settings > Billing. The cancellation steps, and how long you can use it afterwards, are covered in About cancellation.
- Leave your team's workspaces — for what happens to notes you put in shared folders, see “What happens to notes and folders” below.
- Check internally if you used it for work — where your internal rules require meeting records to be kept for a period, deleting the account can leave that obligation unmet. Export the records you need before deleting and store them in your document management system.
- The CSV of the notes you want to keep has arrived by email and you have opened and checked it
- Notes being carried over to another account have finished moving
- The paid plan is cancelled and no next renewal date is shown
- You have told the administrators of the workspaces you belonged to which notes need handing over
The steps
Deletion is done from the settings screen of the desktop app (macOS and Windows). The web version supports viewing and editing existing notes and has no settings screen.
Open settings
Start Pulse and open Settings from your workspace name at the bottom left.
Open Profile
Click Preferences → Profile in the sidebar, scroll down and find the Delete account button.
Confirm the deletion
Delete account — click it and follow the on-screen instructions to confirm.
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Where you cannot get the app into a usable state, or cannot sign in to the account, write to tharada@the-unchain.com from the email address of the account you want deleted. We will act once we have confirmed your identity.
What happens to notes and folders
| What | What happens on deletion |
|---|---|
| Private notes you own | Permanently deleted |
| Private folders you created | Permanently deleted |
| The “container” of a folder with other members in it | May remain, so that the other members can carry on using it |
| Notes you own that were inside such a folder | Permanently deleted |
| Notes you already moved to another account | Not deleted. They remain as that account's notes |
For a shared folder, only the folder itself remains; the contents of the notes you owned are gone. Where the minutes your team was referring to need to be kept, hand them over to another member or export and share them before deleting.
Deleting on the assumption that “it is in a shared folder, so others can see it” deletes the notes you created. For notes the team needs to keep, export and share the contents before deleting, or have someone else recreate them as notes they own.
What happens to the calendar connection
Deleting your account also revokes Pulse's access to the calendar you connected (Google Calendar or the Outlook calendar).
To confirm it has been revoked, or to revoke it by hand, you can do so from each provider's settings.
- Google — remove Pulse from the list of third-party app connections in your Google account's security settings.
- Microsoft — remove Pulse from the list of app permissions on your Microsoft account.
Where an administrator has given tenant-wide consent on your employer's Microsoft 365 tenant, it has to be revoked by the administrator rather than from your personal settings. See Signing in with a Microsoft account.
How data is handled after deletion
Once you confirm deletion, the account and its notes become inaccessible immediately. Data on live systems is erased promptly.
Backups taken for disaster recovery temporarily continue to contain the data as it stood at the moment of deletion. Backups are kept in generations, and that data disappears as newer generations replace them. We do not extract and restore data from backups, and while it remains in a backup it is not available for ordinary use or search.
State specific numbers of days in this section for how long erasure from production takes and how many generations of backup are kept and for how long, to match UNCHAIN, Inc.'s actual practice. Keep the figures consistent with the privacy policy.
Records we are required by law to keep
Even after an account is deleted, records we are required by law to keep are retained for the prescribed period. Where you were on a paid plan, that covers transaction records (contract date, amounts invoiced, payment records, copies of qualified invoices and the like). These follow from accounting and tax legislation and cannot be erased on request.
These records are kept separately from meeting content and transcripts, and are used only for billing and tax purposes.
Set out specifically which records are kept, under which legislation, and for how many years, to match UNCHAIN, Inc.'s accounting and tax practice. Retention periods for books and records also differ between a company and a sole trader. Keep this consistent with the purposes of use described in the privacy policy.
In relation to requests under the Act on the Protection of Personal Information
Deleting your account from the app is deletion as a feature Pulse provides. Separately from that, you may also make a request under the Act on the Protection of Personal Information.
The app's Delete account is a feature that lets you erase your account and notes yourself. There is no fee and no paperwork.
A request to cease use of or erase data under the Act on the Protection of Personal Information, by contrast, is a request made as a legal right. It is made to the contact point set out in the privacy policy, with documents confirming your identity. It can also cover things account deletion does not erase, such as information contained in support correspondence.
In most cases deleting from the app achieves what you want. Use the latter procedure where you want to check what data remains after deletion, or to make a request as a legal right.
An individual may request that their personal data cease to be used or be erased. Under paragraph 5 of that article, a request may also be made where the data is no longer needed, where a leak or similar has occurred, or where there is otherwise a risk of harm to the individual's rights or legitimate interests. Data belonging to someone who has left Pulse falls within “no longer needed”, so UNCHAIN, Inc. proceeds with erasure without waiting for a request.
Where personal data is no longer needed, a business must endeavour to erase it without delay. UNCHAIN, Inc. treats erasure of data after account deletion, and the automatic transcript deletion setting, as practice in line with that provision.
An individual may request disclosure of retained personal data. Under paragraph 1 of that article, disclosure may also be received by specifying provision by electromagnetic record. In Pulse, the Exporting notes in bulk feature lets you obtain your own notes and transcripts in CSV form. For disclosure of anything else, apply to the contact point set out in the privacy policy.
There is no fee for requests to cease use, erase or correct. For requests for disclosure and for notification of the purpose of use, we may charge a fee reflecting the actual costs involved.
If you want to use it again afterwards
Signing in again with the same email address lets you start using it as a new account. The earlier data cannot be restored, but nothing restricts you from using the service itself.
A paid plan would be a new subscription. Neither the earlier contract period nor any benefits carry over.
If something is not working
Q. I cannot find the button for deleting my account
A. Settings > Profile — open it and scroll to the bottom of the screen. It is the Profile screen under Preferences, not the workspace settings screen. Deleting a workspace itself is elsewhere; see Workspaces.
Q. I want to delete an account I cannot sign in to
A. Write to tharada@the-unchain.com from the email address of the account you want deleted. We will act once we have confirmed your identity. Where that email address itself no longer works, say so and we will explain how else we can verify who you are.
Q. As a company, we want to delete a leaver's account
A. A Pulse account belongs to the individual, and a company cannot delete it on their behalf. What a company can do is remove that member from the workspace. For the steps, see Workspaces. For handing over notes created for work, we recommend a routine of having them moved into a shared folder before the person leaves.
Q. I deleted it by mistake
A. There is no way to restore it. Where you ran a CSV export before deleting, the contents are in the file that arrived by email. Check your inbox.
Q. I deleted my account but still receive email from Pulse
A. There can be a lag in processing unsubscribes. Use the unsubscribe link in the email. If it still arrives, contact tharada@the-unchain.com.