Leaving, and why it is easy here
How it works · Safety · 3 min ·
This is a strange thing to write about a site you might be thinking of joining, and it is deliberately near the front. How easily you can leave a place is the most honest thing about it.
Three steps, and it happens at once
Sign in, go to your settings, and choose to leave. That is the whole process. There is no waiting period, no confirmation email, no cooling-off, and nobody asking you to reconsider.
You will not be asked why. There is no short survey, no last offer, and no message telling you that you will be missed. It takes effect immediately.
What goes
- Your account and your email address.
- Your pseudonym, your profile, the place you gave, your year of birth and anything you answered.
- Every photograph you uploaded, removed from storage rather than merely hidden.
- Your albums, and everyone's permission to see them.
- Hugs you sent and received, and any ask of yours.
- Everyone you said yes or no to, every match, and every message in those conversations.
- Anyone you had blocked.
What is kept, and why we say so
Records of safety decisions and the internal staff log are kept, so that a decision made about somebody's safety stays reviewable afterwards. They refer to an account that no longer exists and they contain no profile, no photographs and no messages.
Emails already sent to you are in your inbox rather than ours, and we cannot reach in and take them back. You can delete those yourself.
That is the complete list. It is written down in full on the data deletion page, which exists because a page that says contact us for details is not an answer.
Leaving is not the same as shutting a door
There is a separate thing worth knowing about, and it is for a different situation. Signing out everywhere ends every way into your account that is open right now, on every device, including the one in your hand.
That is the one for a phone somebody took, a computer at a house you no longer visit, or a session you are simply not sure about. Nothing is lost and nothing is deleted. Next time you ask for a link as usual.
If you cannot sign in
Write to care@freehug.me from the address you signed up with and ask us to delete the account. We will do it and confirm, normally within a few days. We will not ask why and we will not try to talk you out of it.
Why build the exit properly
Because a place that is hard to leave is a place nobody can fully relax in. If going means arguing with three screens, then some part of you is standing near the door the whole time you are here, and that part is not available for anything else.
An exit nobody argues with is what makes arriving safe.
And the limit that belongs on every page: this is not a helpline and nobody here is a professional anything. Leaving a site is not the same as being alright, and if today is a serious one, there are people who can help properly.
More
- When you are the one with something to giveGiving a hug asks nothing of you beyond a kind minute. How giving works here, why you will not find out whether it helped, and when not to send one.
- Nobody here ever asks you for moneyThe one absolute rule on freehug.me, why it is stated so flatly, what a request for money tends to look like, and how to tell us without signing in.
- Blocking somebody, and what they seeOne tap, no reason asked, and the other person is never told. What blocking does on freehug.me, what it ends, and why it is deliberately a quiet exit.
Not a helpline, and nobody here is a professional anything. If today is a serious one, there are people who can help properly.