How can users access, correct, or delete their personal data on Discord in 2025?
Executive summary
Discord provides in‑product controls to request a full data package, adjust data‑use settings, and delete your account; data package requests are done via User Settings > Data & Privacy and arrive by email [1] [2]. Account deletion is available from User Settings > My Account, takes a multi‑day processing window (Discord reports 14–15 days) and some data types are retained under Discord’s retention rules [3] [4] [5].
1. How you get your data: the Data Package and request flow
Discord’s documented route to obtain your personal data is a “Data Package” you request from User Settings > Data & Privacy; the package is a ZIP of JSON files that Discord will send to the email address tied to your account and includes messages, servers, and activity [2] [1]. The support article explains your account must be verified with an email before you can request data and shows the Submit Data Request window in the product [1]. This is the primary, self‑service way Discord makes your stored account records available [2] [1].
2. Control toggles and privacy settings you can change right now
Discord offers in‑app controls such as the “Use Data to Improve Discord” and related Data & Privacy toggles (found under User Settings > Data & Privacy) that let you opt out of certain processing or personalization; turning those off stops new collection for those purposes though Discord may continue using previously collected signals [6] [7]. The Checkpoint personalized experience introduced in 2025 depends on your Data & Privacy personalization setting, illustrating how those toggles affect features and data use [8].
3. How to delete your account — process, waits, and recovery window
You can permanently delete a Discord account from User Settings > My Account, but Discord requires you to transfer or delete any servers you own before deletion proceeds; Discord states account deletions take about 14–15 days to process and allows a recovery window before final removal [3] [4]. Third‑party explainers and community posts agree deletion isn’t instantaneous and that different sources cite up to 14–30 days for full erasure of some account traces, while Discord itself keeps data per its retention rules [3] [4] [9].
4. What “deleted” actually means — messages, backups and retention
Discord’s retention statements make clear some information is kept for the life of your account and certain records may survive deletion for business, legal, or safety reasons; the company says it retains data as needed and may delete inactive accounts after two years [5]. Community threads and outside guides note Discord historically does not let users bulk‑delete messages from every channel and that message removal can require manual action or support tickets; backups and logs can also persist beyond the account deletion timeline [10] [11] [12].
5. When you should contact privacy@discord.com or support
If you cannot access your account but need your Data Package or need privacy assistance, Discord’s published guidance directs you to privacy@discord.com for cases where you’ve permanently lost access and to submit data or deletion requests through the product’s Data & Privacy flow [2] [1]. The “Data Used to Improve Discord” article also notes you can email privacy@discord.com to assert objections to processing [6].
6. Risk context after the 2025 third‑party breach — what that means for data control
Several October 2025 reports and analyses document a supply‑chain incident where a third‑party customer‑support/age‑verification vendor was breached and support ticket data (including ID images for some users) was exposed; Discord stated the incident involved a vendor and not its own servers and notified affected users [13] [14] [15]. That breach underscores a practical limit: even if you delete data from your Discord profile, records you submitted to support (e.g., ID images) that were handled by vendors may already have been copied by outsiders — an outcome outside the scope of basic in‑product deletion flows [13] [14].
7. Legal and practical limits: what sources say and what they do not
Discord’s help pages and policy updates promise user controls, opt‑outs, and retention policies, but they also state business and legal exceptions that permit longer retention; community reporting and litigation filings (a class action after the September 2025 incident) highlight disagreements over whether Discord adequately protected third‑party access to PII and whether notice was timely [16] [17]. Available sources do not mention any universal automated tool inside Discord that purges every message across every server instantly on account deletion — instead, deletion and message removal remain a mix of user actions, support tickets, and retention windows [10] [11].
Limitations and next steps: follow Discord’s in‑app Data & Privacy flow to request your Data Package and to submit deletion requests; preserve copies of sensitive documents you uploaded and monitor your email for breach notices because third‑party incidents can expose support ticket contents even if you later delete your account [2] [1] [13].