User Guide
Everything you need to know to get the most out of Deletable.
Getting Started
First launch
Two short intro screens, then one permission — notifications, so Deletable can warn you before something deletes. Camera, Photos, location and Face ID are never asked for up front, only the first time you use a feature that needs them. Pick a default delete time (7 days is preselected), and you are offered Deletable Plus once — tap past it if you like.
Meet your welcome note
Your vault opens with a sample note and a three-step walkthrough: tap a card to open it, watch its timer count down, and use + to add your own. The welcome note deletes itself after 30 minutes. To see the intro again, use Settings → Restart App Intro.
Add your first item
Tap the + button in the bottom-right corner of the vault and choose New Note or New Photo. When you save a new note without having picked a timer, the timer sheet opens first and its button reads Save Note — choose one and the note is encrypted and filed in the vault.
Change your mind anytime
Open any item and tap the clock-arrow button at the top to pick a new delete time — it saves immediately. Notes open read-only; tap Edit at the bottom to change them, and your changes are re-encrypted when you tap Save Note.
Writing Notes
Create a note
Tap + → New Note. The title is optional — leave it blank and the opening words of the note become the title. The editor is true WYSIWYG: formatting renders inline as you type rather than showing you markup.
The keyboard toolbar
Above the keyboard sit the one-tap toggles — Bold, Italic, Underline, bullets and checklists — then Aa for the Text Style menu, and 📍 to drop a place into the note.
The Text Style menu (Aa)
Everything else lives here: strikethrough, a heading and a subheading, numbered lists, and text size. It also holds the font and colour pickers, which are Deletable Plus.
Use checklists
Tap the checklist button to turn a line into a tickable item. Checkboxes are real content, so they save, encrypt, and reopen with their state intact.
Change text size
Size is picked from S / M / L / XL presets and applies to your selection — or to the next thing you type — never to the whole note. Tap the active preset again to clear it and fall back to the note’s base size.
Fonts & text colour (Plus)
Choose System, Serif, Mono or Rounded for the whole note, and colour any selection in red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple or pink. Every other formatting control is free.
Drop a place pin
Tap 📍 and search for an address, tap the map, or use your current location. The place lands in the note as a map card, and tapping that card opens directions in Apple Maps (or Google Maps on Android). The pin is part of the encrypted note — it never leaves the device.
Reading, editing & sharing
Opening a note shows it read-only, with a live countdown to the second and the date it was created. The buttons at the top extend its timer, share its text, or delete it (with a confirmation). Tap Edit to change it; Cancel asks before throwing away unsaved changes.
Share from another app
In Safari, Chrome, or any app that shares URLs or text, tap Share and choose Deletable. On iOS this routes through a native share extension; on Android it uses the system share sheet. Both land on a Save to Vault screen — title, folder, timer, and notification controls — and save the content as an encrypted note.
Storing Photos
Take a photo
Tap + → New Photo → Take Photo to open Deletable’s own camera, with flash (off / on / auto) and a front/back flip. Photos taken here go straight into the vault — they are never saved to your Camera Roll.
Import from your library
Choose Photo Library instead and the system photo picker opens. Deletable only receives the one photo you pick — it never gets access to the rest of your library. Importing makes an encrypted copy: the original stays in Photos, so delete it there if you want it gone.
Set it up
Either way you land on one screen to set the title, folder, delete time and reminders before tapping Save Photo. Skip the timer and it takes the folder’s default, or your app default. The full image and its thumbnail are both encrypted immediately.
Nothing carries EXIF
Every import and capture is re-encoded on the way in, so a stored photo has no GPS coordinates, no capture timestamp, and no device model attached — the original file’s metadata never reaches the vault.
Share from the Photos app
In the iOS Photos app or Android Gallery, select a photo, tap Share, and choose Deletable. The Save to Vault screen lets you set a timer and folder and save it straight into your vault.
View & save a copy
Tap a photo card to open the full-size viewer, with buttons to extend, share or delete it. To keep a copy before the timer fires, share it, or long-press the card and choose Save a Copy — the copy leaves, and the original still deletes on schedule.
Deletion is total
When a photo expires, both the encrypted file and its thumbnail are permanently removed from device storage — not just hidden.
Deletion Timers
The free ladder
60 minutes · 24 hours · 7 days · 30 days · Never. One clean rung per time scale, plus keep-forever. Tap a preset in the Delete After sheet to apply it.
Precise timers (Plus)
Deletable Plus fills in the rungs between: 30 min, 3 / 6 / 12 hours, 3 / 5 / 14 days, and 6 months — plus Custom Duration (any number of days and hours) and Choose Date & Time for an exact moment.
Location-triggered deletion (Plus)
At the bottom of the timer sheet, choose On Arrival or On Departure and pick a place, and the note deletes itself when you reach or leave it instead of on a countdown. The trigger radius is set in Settings → Location Trigger Radius: 100 ft, ¼ mile (the default), 1 mile, or 5 miles.
How deletion actually runs
Expired items are purged when you launch the app, every time you bring it back to the foreground, every few seconds while the vault is on screen, and by a background task in between — so an expired item is always gone before you can see it. The background pass is what gets it off disk sooner. On iOS, enable Background App Refresh for Deletable; on Android, keep battery optimization from restricting it.
Check that it is running
Settings → Deletion → Background Deleting reports when the background sweep last completed, and turns orange if it has been quiet for over a week, with directions to fix it. It measures the outcome rather than asking the OS a question the OS cannot answer.
Colour-coded countdowns
Every card shows a live countdown. Green means more than a week left; cyan, less than a week; orange, less than a day; red, under an hour. Never shows in grey, since it is not counting down.
Folders
Create a folder
Tap the New Folder tile on the shelf under the vault title. Give it a name, pick from 24 colours, and choose an icon — an SF Symbol from the curated grid, or any emoji you type. The free tier keeps up to 2 folders; Plus removes the cap.
Folders open in place
Tapping a folder re-renders the vault around it rather than pushing a new screen, so folder to folder is one tap. The grid, search, multiselect, and the + button all scope themselves to the open folder. To get back out, tap the Vault tile on the shelf or tap the Vault tab again.
The main vault shows loose items
With no folder open, the vault lists only items that are not in a folder — if everything is filed it says so rather than looking empty. Search from there, though, and it covers the whole vault, folders included.
Set a default timer per folder
Each folder carries its own default delete time. Items you add while it is open pick that timer up automatically, so you are not choosing one every time.
Folder self-destruct (Plus)
Turn on Auto-delete this folder and it deletes itself — and everything inside it, even items with longer timers of their own — when the clock runs out. A countdown banner sits under the header while that folder is open.
Edit, reorder or delete
Long-press a folder on the shelf, or tap ··· while it is open, for Edit Folder, Move Left / Move Right, and two ways to delete: Delete Folder keeps its items in the vault, unfiled; Delete Folder & Items removes everything in it too.
Security & Privacy
AES-256-GCM encryption
Encryption is always on — there's no toggle. Every note and photo is encrypted before being written to the local database, and GCM is authenticated, so tampered or damaged data throws rather than decoding to garbage. Your master key lives in the iOS Keychain or Android Keystore and never leaves the device.
Lock the app
Settings → Security → Lock App, then choose a method. Face ID / Touch ID (fingerprint on Android) uses your biometrics, with your device passcode as the fallback. Passcode sets a separate 4-digit code just for Deletable, which you can change later under Change Passcode.
Passcode attempts are throttled
Four free attempts, then a 30s / 1m / 5m / 15m / 30m ladder that survives a force-quit. The delay is capped at 30 minutes, so nothing can lock you out of your own vault for longer than the ladder allows. Biometric failures are not throttled — the OS already rate-limits those.
Configure the lock timeout
Settings → Security → Lock After decides how long the app can sit in the background before it locks: Immediately, After 1 Minute, After 5 Minutes (the default), After 15 Minutes, or Never.
No screenshots, no screen recording
Screenshots and screen recordings of Deletable come out blank — on iOS and Android, for as long as the app is open. When you switch apps, iOS also blurs the app-switcher preview and Android blanks it in Recents.
Blur Vault Preview
Settings → Privacy → Blur Vault Preview hides note text and photo thumbnails on the vault cards until you open them — useful if people can see your screen.
Erase Vault
The Erase Vault button at the bottom of Settings wipes every note, photo and folder at once, along with the encrypted files, scheduled notifications and live geofences. It sits behind a two-step confirmation that names the exact item and folder counts. Your stats and achievements are deliberately kept — the confirmation says so.
No cloud sync of content
Your vault never leaves your device. Only anonymous, aggregated counts are ever synced — and Settings → Privacy → Anonymous Usage Stats switches even those off.
Notifications & Reminders
Expiry reminders
Expiration Notifications are on by default, 5 minutes before deletion. In Settings you can pick any combination of lead times — 1, 5 or 10 minutes, 1 hour, or 1 day before — and change them and the reminders reschedule themselves.
Per-item reminders
When creating or editing an item, the Notifications button sets its own reminders: App default follows Settings, None silences it, or pick lead times just for that item.
Act straight from the notification
Every expiry reminder carries Keep 24 More Hours (it resets the timer to 24 hours from that moment) and Delete Now, so you can decide the moment it arrives. If the item was already deleted, the app tells you rather than quietly doing nothing.
If reminders stop working
When notification permission has been denied or revoked while the in-app toggle is still on, Settings shows "Reminders Are Blocked" — which otherwise means scheduling reminders that can never fire. Tap it to jump to system Settings; it re-checks every time you come back.
Nothing leaks to the lock screen
Expiry reminders never name your item. They always read "A note or photo deletes in 5 minutes" — whether or not the app is locked.
Live Activity countdown (iOS)
Turn on Settings → Dynamic Island → Show Countdown and, when an item enters its final hour, a live countdown appears on the Lock Screen and — on iPhone 14 Pro and later — in the Dynamic Island. Location-triggered items have no countdown, so they are excluded.
Widgets, Siri & Shortcuts
Home & Lock Screen widgets (iOS)
Deletes Soonest shows a live countdown to your next deletion, on the Home Screen (small or medium) or the Lock Screen. Trash Level shows your achievement tier and how many deletions until the next one. Both carry counts and times only, never titles or content.
Home-screen widgets (Android)
Deletable Countdown shows your next auto-deletion; Deletable Trash Level shows your tier and progress. They refresh whenever your vault changes and periodically in the background.
Quick actions
Long-press the Deletable app icon and choose Add Note or Add Photo. If the app is locked, the unlock screen comes first and the action runs after.
Siri & Shortcuts (iOS 16+)
Say "Add a note to Deletable" or "Add a photo to Deletable" and the app opens straight to the add flow — behind the unlock screen, if your lock is on. "Check my Deletable vault" tells you how many items you have and when the next one deletes, without opening the app. All three also appear in the Shortcuts app under Deletable, ready for automations. Siri only ever gets that count — never a title or a word of your notes.
Keyboard shortcuts
With a hardware keyboard attached: ⌘N and ⌘⇧N for a new note or photo, ⌘F to search, ⌘1 / ⌘2 / ⌘3 to switch between Vault, Stats and Settings, ⌘E to share the open note or photo, ⌘A to select all, ⌘⌫ to delete a selection (the confirmation still appears), and Esc to leave selection mode.
Vault Layout, Search & Batch Actions
What a card shows
Each card carries the title, a live countdown, and either a photo thumbnail or the first lines of the note — plus a folder pill and a place pill when those apply.
1 or 2 per row
Settings → Appearance → Vault Layout switches between a single-column list and a two-column grid (the default).
Sort your items
Settings → Appearance → Vault Sort Order offers "Soonest to Delete" (the default) or "Recently Created" (newest first).
Search
Tap the magnifying glass in the vault header to reveal the search bar. Deletable matches titles and the start of each note as you type, and highlights the matched words right in each card. Inside a folder, search covers just that folder.
Long-press a card
Long-press any card for Select, Save a Copy, or Delete Now. Delete Now removes it on the spot — there is no trash to restore from.
Select several at once
Choose Select from that menu, then tap more cards to add them. The header lets you move them to a folder, extend all their timers, or delete the whole selection after one confirmation — with Select All and Deselect All alongside.
Stats & Achievement Tiers
View your stats
The Trash Stats tab shows items deleted (split into notes and photos), space freed, an estimate of the time you have saved, and a trash pile that grows with your tier. If you use location-triggered deletion, it also counts deletions on arrival and on leaving.
Achievement tiers
Everyone starts as a Newcomer. Delete items to climb 11 tiers: Trash Panda (3) → Bin Raider → Compost Connoisseur → Average Raccoon → Dumpster Diver → Route Raider → Landfill Legend → Distinguished Raccoonian (1,000) → Orbital Debris Officer → Cosmic Composter → Event Horizon (10,000). A progress bar shows how close the next one is.
Share your stats
Tap Share My Stats to render a styled card of your tier, items deleted, and space freed. Pick its look in the theme row just above the button: Classic is free; Paper, Midnight and Raccoon are Plus themes. Every theme keeps the deletable.app footer.
Expiry habits & pace (Plus)
Plus adds a ranked breakdown of which timers you actually pick, plus your delete pace — "deleting for 92 days · 4.2 per week." The headline totals, the tier ladder, and the share button stay free.
Deletable Plus
What the ✦ means
A cyan ✦ marks every Plus control, in place of its checkmark, radio, or chevron. A marked control is never disabled — tap it and the paywall opens explaining what it unlocks.
Upgrade
Settings → Deletable Plus opens the paywall: $0.99 a month, $9.99 a year, or $19.99 once for lifetime access. It is also offered once at the end of first-run onboarding, where it is dismissible.
Manage or cancel
Once you are a member, that same screen becomes a membership card — your plan, member-since date, and either your renewal date or when access ends. Manage Subscription takes you to the App Store to change or cancel it.
Restore on a new device
There is no account, so Plus rides on your App Store purchase. Tap Restore at the bottom of the paywall and it comes back.
Settings Overview
Default delete time
Settings → Deletion → Default Delete Time sets the timer every new item starts with. Folders can override it with their own default.
Theme & app icon
Choose Dark (the default), Light, or System under Appearance → Theme. On iOS, App Icon swaps the home-screen icon for Raccoon Light, Trash Can or Shredder — a Plus feature; the default Raccoon stays free.
Turn analytics off entirely
Settings → Privacy → Anonymous Usage Stats. Off means the app makes no network requests at all, and any queued payload is dropped rather than sent later. On, it syncs aggregate counts against a random device ID — never content, never anything that identifies you.
Accessibility
Deletable follows your system settings: Increase Contrast switches to a higher-contrast palette, Reduce Transparency replaces the glass tab bar with a solid one, Reduce Motion calms the animations, and every control is labelled for VoiceOver and TalkBack.
Your device ID
Settings → About shows the app version and the random device ID your anonymous stats are keyed to. Tap the ID to copy it — it is what you would send us if you ever wanted that record removed.
Restart the intro & get help
Restart App Intro runs the first-run screens again on the next launch — the default-time choice and a fresh welcome note included. Nothing already in your vault is removed. FAQs & Help at the very bottom opens this site’s help page.
Ready to start deleting?
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