Rectoly — Data Deletion Request
Last updated October 13, 2026
Rectoly is developed by Hawk Eye. This page explains how to ask us to delete the data Rectoly holds about you, what is deleted, what is kept, and for how long. It applies to Rectoly for Mendeley and Rectoly for Zotero on iPad, iPhone, Mac, Android, Windows, and Linux.
How to request deletion
Email [email protected] from the email address on your Mendeley or Zotero account, with "Data deletion request" as the subject. Tell us which app you use — Rectoly for Mendeley or Rectoly for Zotero.
We confirm your request within 7 days and complete the deletion within 30 days. We use the address you write from only to verify the request and to reply to it.
An account you signed in to with an email address can be deleted by you as described below. Write to us only if you also want the record of a purchase itself removed; in that case tell us the address you signed in with. Please write before you delete the account, so that we can find the purchase.
Data you can delete yourself, immediately
- An account you signed in to with an email address. Delete it in Rectoly's settings (Purchase › Email account › "Delete account…") or at rectoly.com/account/delete/ (enter the address, enter the code we email to it, and confirm). Our server's records for that account — its sessions, its trial record, and the record of which purchases were linked to its ID — are removed immediately. If the account had started a free trial, the date and time it started is kept with the ID derived from the address for 400 days, so that the trial cannot be started over with the same address; then it is deleted automatically. If it had not, the ID is deleted too. The record of a purchase itself (the receipt or purchase token, and for an App Store or Google Play purchase the identifier the app derived from the ID and attached to it; for a website purchase the Paddle transaction and customer IDs, amount, currency, date and refund status) is kept with that ID removed from it; to have it deleted too, ask us as described on this page before you delete the account. Signing out alone removes the session and the address from that device.
- Disconnect your account. In Rectoly's settings, disconnect your Mendeley or Zotero account. The stored access token or API key is removed from the device at once.
-
Uninstall the app. On iPad, iPhone, and Android, this removes the downloaded PDFs,
highlights, notes, and handwriting stored on that device. On Windows and Linux, the app's data
folder stays after you uninstall, and on a Mac it can stay after you delete the app. Deleting that
folder removes them:
- Windows:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Rectoly(Rectoly for Mendeley) or%LOCALAPPDATA%\RectolyZotero(Rectoly for Zotero) - Linux:
~/.local/share/rectolyor~/.local/share/rectoly-zotero(inside$XDG_DATA_HOMEinstead, if you have set it) - Mac: the app's folder in
~/Library/Containers
- Windows:
- iPad, iPhone, and Mac only: turn off iCloud backup in Rectoly's settings, or remove the app's iCloud data from your device's Settings app. The Android, Windows, and Linux apps have no iCloud backup.
- Your WebDAV password and linked-files folder. A WebDAV server's password is stored encrypted on that device only and is sent nowhere but your own server. Removing the WebDAV settings in Rectoly, or disconnecting your account, deletes it at once. The same goes for the folder you choose for files linked with ZotFile or ZotMoov; Rectoly never changes the files inside it.
- Anonymous usage statistics. Turn them off at any time in Rectoly's settings.
- Translations. Translations on the device go away with the app’s data folder (on Android, when the app is deleted). Translations and request files saved to your own Mendeley or Zotero library have names beginning “Rectoly translation (do not delete)” — delete those files (in Zotero, attachments) in Mendeley or Zotero.
- Pairing. Remove it in Rectoly’s settings on either machine; removing it deletes that machine’s key.
Data we delete when you ask
| What | Where it is kept | How long we keep it |
|---|---|---|
| Your licence record — your Mendeley profile ID or Zotero user ID, or the ID derived from your email address if you signed in with one; the store receipt or purchase token for your purchase, or for a purchase on our website the Paddle transaction and customer IDs, amount and currency, purchase date, and refund status; the IDs of your other accounts that share the purchase (only your own, up to three); whether a free trial has started and when; when the record was created; and the date and app version of your most recent check on each platform | Our licence server, hosted on Google Cloud (Firebase) | For as long as your purchase remains valid, so that you can restore it on a new device. Removed within 30 days of your request. |
| Email sign-in records — the ID derived from your email address (the address itself is not stored), a session for each signed-in device (a hash of its token, when it was created and last used, the app name and version), when the account was created and last signed in to, and the hash of the code with the counts of emails sent and codes entered | Our account server (on Google Cloud / Firebase) | Until you delete the account (you can do this yourself, as described above, and it takes effect immediately). After the account is deleted, only the start of a trial it had begun is kept, with the ID, for 400 days. A session stops working 400 days after it was last used, and its record is removed when you sign out on that device or delete the account; codes and counts are deleted automatically, normally within 2 days. |
| Licence check log — a dated record of each time a purchase or trial was claimed, kept for support and for investigating abuse | Our licence server, hosted on Google Cloud (Firebase) | Deleted automatically, no later than 1 year after it is written. Removed sooner, within 30 days, if you ask. |
| Away-from-home request signals — two short encrypted signals and their times | Our relay server, hosted on Google Cloud (Firebase) | Unreadable after 15 minutes and deleted automatically, normally within 24 hours. Because they are not linked to an account, we cannot single them out for deletion on request. |
| Your Mendeley access token or Zotero API key | Your device only. Our servers relay the token or key during sign-in (and, for Mendeley, each time the token is renewed), and receive it when the app checks your licence, but never store or log it. | Until you disconnect the account — you can do this yourself, and it takes effect immediately. Uninstalling the app also removes it on Android, and deleting the data folder described above does so on Windows and Linux. |
| Server logs — for each request to our sign-in relay, email sign-in, licence server, and update check: the time, your IP address, the address requested, the app name and version, and the result; for purchase-related requests, also your account ID and order number. They never contain tokens, API keys, the address or the code of an email sign-in, or anything from your documents | Google Cloud Logging, for our servers on Google Cloud (Firebase) | Deleted automatically after 30 days. The logging service does not let us remove single entries earlier, so these expire on that schedule. |
| Emails and diagnostics files you send us — your email address, your message, and anything you attach, such as a diagnostics file (which on iPad, iPhone, and Mac includes the text of your highlights and notes) | Our support mailbox | For as long as we need them to handle your request. Removed within 30 days of your request. |
| Launch-news sign-up — your email address, the product you signed up for, the page language, and the campaign link that brought you, if any | Our email provider, MailerLite | Until you unsubscribe (a link is in every email) or ask us to remove it. Removed within 30 days of your request. |
Data we cannot delete for you
- Your documents and annotations. Your PDFs, highlights, notes, and handwriting live in your own Mendeley or Zotero account. Delete them in that service. We do not receive them unless you send them to us, and cannot remove them from that account on your behalf.
- Anonymous usage statistics. These signals are not tied to your identity, so they cannot be traced back to you or removed individually. You can stop sending them at any time in Rectoly's settings. The daily totals our licence server keeps contain no account ID either, so there is nothing in them to remove for you.
- Purchase records held by the store or reseller. Apple, Google, and Paddle keep their own records of what you bought. Their privacy policies govern that data.
What happens after deletion
Deleting your licence record does not refund a purchase. Once it is gone, a purchase made on one platform will no longer unlock Rectoly automatically on the other. You can restore the purchase from the store you bought it in, which creates a new licence record.
Related
Contact
Questions about deleting your data: [email protected]