How long data is kept
Whence deletes old data every night. You choose how long recordings are kept, up to what your plan allows. Everything else has a fixed duration, listed below.
Choose how long recordings are kept
Step 1: Open Data retention
Go to Settings > Data retention. The card How long recordings are kept says what your plan allows, for example “Your plan allows up to 60 days. Older recordings are deleted for good.”
Step 2: Pick a duration
Under Keep recordings for, pick 7, 14, 30, 60, 90, 180 or 365 days. Only the durations your plan allows are listed.
Step 3: Save
Click Save changes.
Shorter means less stored about your visitors, and a lighter bill. When you shorten the duration, recordings older than the new limit are deleted during the next nightly cleanup. A store with a lot of history may take more than one night to catch up; nothing older than the limit is ever kept on purpose.
Changing this needs the Store settings right.
What your plan allows
The maximum depends on your plan and its visit tier. Settings > Plan shows it next to “recordings kept”. The Free plan keeps 30 days. To keep recordings longer than your plan includes, add the longer history add-on (Add-ons).
Everything that follows your recording duration
These are deleted at the same time as the recordings they belong to:
- visits and their recordings,
- page views, clicks, form interactions and events measured on each visit, and the daily heatmap and element totals,
- AI summaries,
- survey answers,
- notifications in the bell (never more than 90 days).
Fixed durations
| Data | Kept for |
|---|---|
| Shopping events used for conversions (views, carts, checkout steps) | 90 days |
| Visitor IP address on those events (only with marketing consent) | 7 days (IP addresses) |
| Consent records already collected (Whence no longer collects new ones) | 24 months, then deleted |
| Privacy requests | 365 days |
| Orders and contacts | As long as your store stays connected |
Orders and contacts are deleted once every commerce connection of the store is disconnected, from Whence or by uninstalling the Shopify app. A connection that is only in error or waiting for a new sign-in does not count as disconnected.
When you leave
- Uninstalling the Shopify app: 48 hours later, Shopify asks Whence to erase the store’s data, and Whence does. If you reinstall first, nothing is erased.
- Canceling your account: the data stays 30 days, then everything is erased.
- Delete my account (at the bottom of Plan, owner only): recording stops at once and everything is erased 30 days later. Until then, Keep my account undoes it.
When your free month ends without a plan, your account moves to the Free plan. Nothing is deleted at that moment; recordings older than 30 days then go at the nightly cleanup.