How to delete your Osu! account

About deleting your osu! account

osu! is a popular rhythm game developed by Dean Herbert (peppy) that centers on clicking circles, sliding sliders, and spinning spinners to the beat of community-submitted music. Because the game relies heavily on a centralized server architecture to track global leaderboards, replay data, and community social interactions, it maintains a comprehensive database of your gaming history.

Players often choose to delete their accounts to step away from the highly competitive nature of the leaderboards, address concerns regarding the public visibility of their historical performance, or simply to reduce their digital footprint. Common motivations include:

• Desiring a clean slate to prevent past accuracy stats or ranking performance from being associated with their online identity.
• Concerns over the persistent nature of profile statistics, such as play count, total score, and ranking history.
• The wish to withdraw from the osu! community ecosystem, including forum posts, beatmap comments, and user-to-user private messages.

What happens to your data

osu! maintains an extensive log of user activity. When you request a deletion, the process is manual and handled by the support team, who often suggest account restriction as an alternative. Upon successful account closure, the following data is typically addressed:

• Personal Identity: The email address, username, and associated account profile settings are deactivated or scrubbed.
• Gameplay Metrics: Leaderboard rankings, total score, and accuracy percentages are removed from public view.
• Social History: Forum posts and comments may be anonymized or deleted depending on the request's impact on community threads.
• Retention: Some metadata, such as administrative logs or data required for legal and anti-cheat enforcement, may be retained to prevent multi-accounting or ban evasion.

Privacy considerations

Using osu! involves connecting your client to ppy servers, which tracks your IP address and hardware identifiers to maintain game integrity through the Bancho anti-cheat system. Users concerned with privacy should be aware of how their data is displayed:

• Public Leaderboards: Your performance is permanently visible to anyone who views your profile unless the account is closed.
• Hardware Tracking: The osu! client records system data to ensure competitive fairness.
• Third-party site exposure: Sites like osu!track and others archive historical data, meaning even after deletion, some information may persist on third-party aggregators.

Privacy Tips:

• Use a dedicated, unique email address when signing up for services like osu! to limit cross-site tracking.
• Scrub your forum activity before requesting account closure to ensure you don't leave identifiable information in public threads.
• Regularly review the 'Privacy Policy' link located at the bottom of the osu! website for updates regarding data processing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I just delete my account from the settings menu?

No, the osu! website does not offer a self-service 'delete account' button. You must contact support directly via email.

Does deleting my account remove my forum posts?

Requests for account deletion generally include removing your ability to log in, but forum posts may remain as anonymous entries or might be removed depending on the support team's discretion.

Why does support suggest restricting my account instead of deleting it?

Restriction is a 'soft' deletion method used by the staff to prevent users from creating new accounts while keeping the server data intact for integrity purposes.

Will my replays be removed if I delete my account?

Yes, once an account is deactivated, associated replays linked to that user ID are generally removed from the public-facing leaderboard and replay storage servers.

Can I get my data back after an account is deleted?

Account deletion in the context of osu! is typically considered permanent; restoration is rarely granted by the support team.

What email should I use to request my account be closed?

You must send the request from the email address currently verified to your osu! account to verify ownership to the accounts@ppy.sh address.