How to delete your GraphCMS account

About deleting your GraphCMS account

GraphCMS, now rebranded as Hygraph, is a powerful GraphQL-native headless content management system that enables developers to build complex content architectures. Because it serves as a central hub for organizational content schemas, API tokens, and structured data, managing the lifecycle of your account is critical for data hygiene.

Users often choose to delete their GraphCMS accounts for several specific reasons:

• Transitioning projects away from a headless GraphQL architecture.
• Consolidating development tools to minimize the attack surface of proprietary APIs.
• Ensuring that legacy content schemas and API endpoints are no longer discoverable.
• Retiring sandbox or proof-of-concept projects that contain sensitive development environment variables.

Deleting a GraphCMS account is a permanent decision that triggers the removal of project-specific schemas, localization settings, and user-defined content models. Once an account is removed, the associated GraphQL API endpoints become inaccessible, preventing further data fetching or mutation attempts from your integrated front-end applications.

What happens to your data

When you initiate the deletion process for your GraphCMS account, the service attempts to purge data linked to your identity and project instances. However, the nature of cloud-native content platforms means some data may persist in off-site backups or logs for a defined period.

• Content Models: The specific schema definitions and content structures you built will be purged.
• API Tokens: All personal access tokens and permanent API keys associated with your projects are revoked.
• User Profile: Your registration details, including email address and authentication providers, are removed from the active database.
• Project Assets: Any media assets or binary files uploaded to the Hygraph CDN associated with your specific organization are marked for deletion.

While GraphCMS strives to clear data upon request, some system-level logs containing API access metadata may be retained for security and audit purposes in accordance with their standard data retention policies and legal compliance requirements.

Privacy considerations

As a developer tool, GraphCMS handles significant amounts of metadata regarding your application's data structure. Maintaining control over this information is essential for privacy compliance, especially if you are handling user-generated content or sensitive intellectual property within your content models.

• Audit API logs: Before deleting, check your analytics and query logs to ensure you have captured any necessary data you might need for future documentation.
• Revoke Integrations: Ensure that any third-party webhooks or external services connected via GraphCMS webhooks are disabled or updated to avoid 'dangling' API connections.
• Data Portability: Export your content schemas and JSON data models before deleting to ensure you do not lose your structural work.
• Security Audits: If you are shutting down a production environment, verify that no secret keys or sensitive environment variables were accidentally hardcoded into your content models.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will deleting my account automatically stop my subscription billing?

Yes, deleting your account initiates the cancellation of active billing cycles, but it is recommended to verify your subscription status in the billing portal before final deletion.

Can I recover my GraphCMS account after deletion?

Account deletion in GraphCMS is generally permanent. Once the account and its associated project nodes are flagged for removal, they cannot be restored.

Does deleting my account delete my projects too?

Yes, in GraphCMS, your account and the projects hosted under your management are intrinsically linked; deleting the account will result in the loss of all project content and API endpoints.

How long does GraphCMS keep my data after I request deletion?

While the deletion is processed rapidly, data may remain in system backups for a short period of time to satisfy internal operational requirements before being completely overwritten.

Do I need to remove my API keys before deleting the account?

While the account deletion process automatically revokes access, it is a best practice to manually rotate or delete sensitive API keys as part of your cleanup workflow.

Is my data shared with third parties by GraphCMS?

GraphCMS does not generally share your proprietary content models with third parties, but they utilize sub-processors for infrastructure hosting; check their updated privacy policy for specific vendor lists.