# Delete my account
**URL:** https://discourse.nixos.org/t/delete-my-account/74589
**Category:** Meta
**Created:** [January 22, 2026, 5:27pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/delete-my-account/74589 "2026-01-22T17:27:22Z")
**Posts on this page:** 18
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@anon77591810](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/anon77591810)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2026, 5:27pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/delete-my-account/74589/1 "2026-01-22T17:27:23Z")
Hello,
I’m no longer using my NixOS Discourse account and would like it to be anonymized or deleted.
I prefer not to keep inactive accounts for security reasons.
Thanks in advance.
---
### Author:  [@piegames](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/piegames)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2026, 4:27pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/delete-my-account/74589/2 "2026-01-23T16:27:42Z")
This is not the first request of this kind in our forum, and generally my reading of the GDPR is that this should be a self-service option which we are required to provide. A preliminary glance into the Discourse settings says that users with more than n posts (where n is an admin-configurable limit) are not allowed to delete their own account anymore, which in my layman’s interpretation is not GDPR-compliant. The limit should instead be disabled, allowing everyone to delete their account via the account settings.
---
### Author:  [@NobbZ](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/NobbZ)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2026, 4:36pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/delete-my-account/74589/3 "2026-01-23T16:36:40Z")
By my understanding of the GDPR, self service is not required, neither for deletion, nor for asking for all the stored data.
Service providers are allowed to require written form.
There are other regulations that demand that canceling a subscription has to be as easy as the subscription itself, though I am not sure if an account on a forum platform falls under this reulations.
I agree though, we should not require a public post asking for deletion. There should be a group to DM, an email to write to, or something like that.
---
### Author:  [@keysmashes](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/keysmashes)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2026, 11:59am UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/delete-my-account/74589/4 "2026-01-24T11:59:53Z")
legal requirements aside, it seems a bit silly and a waste of everyone’s time to make account deletion any harder than clicking a button. if there’s no situation in which an administrator would decline to delete an account (and I can’t personally think of one), why involve them in the first place?
---
### Author:  [@dalto](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/dalto)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2026, 3:06pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/delete-my-account/74589/5 "2026-01-24T15:06:37Z")
Because, as far as I know, Discourse doesn’t offer the feature to self-anonymize.
“Deletion” in the Discourse meaning erases all the content of any type from the user. This makes that content simply dissolve as if it was never there. This means topics either disappear, taking a lot of other users content along with them or can substantially change the meaning of historical topics when the flow is broken.
On most forums, the staff don’t even have the ability to delete users after they have more than a few posts.
---
### Author:  [@colemickens](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/colemickens)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2026, 5:00am UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/delete-my-account/74589/6 "2026-01-28T05:00:13Z")
Is there a policy on this? Can any user request that their account and content be purged?
---
### Author:  [@hexa](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/hexa)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2026, 3:34pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/delete-my-account/74589/7 "2026-01-28T15:34:33Z")
The following rules govern the account retirement process:
- Users cannot be deleted while they still have posts
- Posts cannot be deleted when they’re older than 60 days
- Anonymization is always an option
Discourse does not offer self-service for these things. Instead, an admin needs to be contacted to execute the request within the given limitations.
---
### Author:  [@NobbZ](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/NobbZ)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2026, 4:14pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/delete-my-account/74589/8 "2026-01-28T16:14:27Z")
But does a channel exist, and is it publicly advertised, to request deletion without the necessity of a public post, that in my opinion counters the intend of an anonymisation, as a user in bad faith might keep record of the public request for anonymisation/deletion.
Also, at least for the european customers, how does this conform to their rights according to the GDPR, namely the right for deletion?
I assume that the NixOS foundation is the official “owner” of the forum, which again is a dutch non-profit organisation and therefore has to comply to the GDPR (for european users at least) as far as I understand the GDPR.
---
### Author:  [@Mapybara](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/Mapybara)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2026, 7:45pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/delete-my-account/74589/9 "2026-01-28T19:45:36Z")
I hope we can keep the de facto rule that posts can’t be deleted, but of course we should comply with the GDPR so I hope we can resolve this by someone from the Foundation mandating an official email address for privately requesting to be anonymised.
---
### Author:  [@hexa](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/hexa)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2026, 8:01pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/delete-my-account/74589/10 "2026-01-28T20:01:20Z")
You can already privately request that by DMing an administrator.
I won’t speak to the rest, since I’m no legal expert.
---
### Author:  [@Infinisil](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/Infinisil)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2026, 9:06pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/delete-my-account/74589/11 "2026-01-28T21:06:28Z")
Just for the sake of avoiding unnecessary attention spend, I’d prefer if the discourse mods/admins would delete such posts (after processing the request or redirecting the user to DM admins), since they generally serve no purpose to keep around. Since this one has some substance to it now I guess we can keep it around, but I’d still prefer it to get muted.
From a legal perspective I see no issues, but if anybody believes there is one, please reach out to [foundation@nixos.org](mailto:foundation@nixos.org).
---
### Author:  [@ThePhatLe](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/ThePhatLe)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2026, 10:25pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/delete-my-account/74589/12 "2026-01-28T22:25:05Z")
I know some discourse does this anomising user so posts are still there and then remove the account/delete. I have no idea how they do this in general, but example in fedora discourse you request account deletion and the user gets random anon1234 account and then the requested user is deleted
---
### Author:  [@dalto](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/dalto)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2026, 10:40pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/delete-my-account/74589/13 "2026-01-28T22:40:11Z")
Fedora has a separate accounts system integrated with discourse so they have to do the anonymization and then delete the account.
In most Discourse scenarios, you only need to do the anonymization. It removes all the account information.
---
### Author:  [@nosferatu](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/nosferatu)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2026, 6:15pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/delete-my-account/74589/14 "2026-03-02T18:15:29Z")
I actually operate a discourse forum of my own elsewhere. Account deletion is a hot topic with the discourse devs where they believe it should be impossible past a certain point.
I wrote a plugin a long time ago to overcome this limitation but since then more restrictions were added making it stop working. I have to update it.
> [@dalto](#):
>
> It removes all the account information.
This isn’t true. All instances of quotes or self-posted identifying information will remain identifiable.
If you deleted your account right now this quote above will still use your avatar and name
---
### Author:  [@dalto](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/dalto)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2026, 6:24pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/delete-my-account/74589/15 "2026-03-02T18:24:30Z")
> [@nosferatu](#):
>
> If you deleted your account right now this quote above will still use your avatar and name
No it doesn’t usually.
Here is an example from another Discourse forum:
---
### Author:  [@nosferatu](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/nosferatu)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2026, 6:31pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/delete-my-account/74589/16 "2026-03-02T18:31:46Z")
Interesting. My forum has lots of instances of that not happening. Something must’ve changed at some point.
---
### Author:  [@NobbZ](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/NobbZ)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2026, 9:30pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/delete-my-account/74589/17 "2026-03-02T21:30:14Z")
> [@nosferatu](#):
>
> Account deletion is a hot topic with the discourse devs where they believe it should be impossible past a certain point.
Even though I personally agree, GDPR does not. And guess who has more to say.
If I had to pick between the discourse-devs opinion and the GDPRs opinion, I’d rather use something else than discourse.
---
### Author:  [@TLATER](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/TLATER)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2026, 9:46am UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/delete-my-account/74589/18 "2026-03-03T09:46:19Z")
> [@NobbZ](#):
>
> Even though I personally agree, GDPR does not. And guess who has more to say.
GDPR isn’t as strict as it’s usually interpreted by developers. I think discourse’s interpretation of “you have participated in a public conversation whose persistence is important” being “legitimate interest” could be defensible if it ever came to it, especially with anonymization being possible.
Plenty of organizations weasel their way out of GDPR requirements through having “legitimate interest” by means of taxation and other government reporting for account data that is tied to anything financial.