How to delete your Wattpad account

Not in the way most people expect. Closing the account immediately removes your profile, stories and reading lists from public view, and after roughly six months Wattpad purges your identifying data (username, email, password, IP, photos, bio, follower lists, settings). But Wattpad's own data table states that published and drafted stories, private messages, public messages, comments on profiles, reading history, notification history and votes are 'anonymized and only available on our internal servers' — they are unlinked from you rather than erased. Your comments on other people's stories are anonymized but stay publicly visible on Wattpad. If you want your work gone from public view before you leave, delete or unpublish the individual stories yourself first.

Usually yes, for approximately six months. Reopening is just logging back in: enter the username or email plus the password on any platform and the account self-restores, re-associating your comments and contributions with your profile, and you get an email titled 'Your Wattpad account was successfully restored.' Several things can block it. If you forgot the password you are stuck, because you cannot reset the password of a closed account — only Wattpad Support can help. If someone else has registered your old username, restoration is permanently impossible. If your old email is now attached to a different active Wattpad account, restoration is still possible but you must first change the email on that other account or close it, since Wattpad forbids two active accounts sharing an email. If the account was closed by Wattpad for a Code of Conduct or Terms of Service violation, it cannot be reopened at all. And if you have lost access to the linked email address itself, Wattpad says it is 'unable to reopen your account due to security reasons.' After six months the account is permanently purged and cannot be recovered by anyone, including Support.

Partly, and Wattpad's own help article contradicts itself here. One line insists closure 'is only available on the web on a regular computer, you cannot close your account on the app or a mobile browser' — but the same article then gives working in-app steps for iOS ('Settings' > 'Account Settings' > 'Close Account') and for Android on app version 10.64.0 or newer, and separately says that if you are already logged in on mobile web you can close your account from that page. Treat desktop web as the reliable path. If you are on Android 10.63.0 or older, or the mobile route does not present the option, either log in on a regular computer or submit a support request via 'Fix a problem / Contact us' at support.wattpad.com and an agent will close it for you.

Because closure is a six-month deactivation first, purge second. Wattpad deliberately keeps everything so you can change your mind. Two exceptions stop the purge indefinitely: an active Premium/Premium+ subscription, or purchased Coins sitting in your digital wallet. If either is present at the six-month mark, the account is not purged. Worse, Wattpad warns that closing your account does not cancel a subscription bought through an app store — so you can end up still being charged while your data sits there in full. Cancel through the App Store or Google Play and spend the Coins before you close.

Yes. Wattpad states plainly that when you close your account you are giving up your username, and if someone creates an account with the same username you will no longer be able to restore your original account. If you care about the handle, closing the account is the fastest way to lose it — and losing it also destroys your six-month window to reverse the decision.

There is no self-service instant-erasure button; the six-month cycle is the documented default. To make a formal access, correction or deletion request, email [email protected], or write to the Privacy Team at 36 Wellington St. E., Suite 200, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5E 1C7. If you are in the EEA, Switzerland or the UK, Wattpad Corp. is the controller and you can also reach its data protection representative, Data Rep, at [email protected], 77 Camden Street Lower, Dublin D02 XE80, Ireland, or 107-111 Fleet Street, London EC4A 2AB, United Kingdom — Wattpad asks that non-privacy matters not be sent to DataRep. Note that Wattpad says it complies 'to the extent required by law or our policies, and subject to any limitations in our systems', and its policy expressly reserves that anonymized comments and contributions will remain on the Service.