In reviewing the email log, I noticed that we would appear to be emailing an address that doesn’t have a user: [ghost_user_email] Research elsewhere shows that this was a recently self-deleted user. These log entries do predate the deletion – but there are no similar entries for other deleted users. Just wondering how things work: does user deletion normally remove such traces? This makes it sound like “yes”… [image] Is there a way to retrieve information about deleted users? Support I don’t think there is any way to recover the email address of a deleted user. Discourse handles deleting users differently than it handles deleting posts or topics. When a user is deleted, they are fully deleted from the database, when a post or topic is deleted it is only soft-deleted so it can be recovered at a later time.

How long do you keep your email logs? By default those are deleted after 90 days (Delete email logs after days). I think it’s as HAWK often writes: it’s not the software that is compliant, but its use.

Also: this self-deleted user’s single post (which got deleted too) was 10 months old. [Log entries show a "delete user" and "delete post."] Shouldn’t this user’s self-deletion have been prevented by this setting?: [Setting "Delete user max post age" is set to 60 days.]

I think the 60 days define how long staff can easily delete a user. The 60 days are used in the warning shown to staff on the user’s admin page [Screenshot_20251018_140931_Firefox] Self deletion is based on Delete user self max post count [Screenshot_20251018_140855_Firefox]

Thanks for the clarification, Moin. A small tweak to the Delete user max post age description could make it clearer: Don't allow staff to delete users whose first post in older than (x) days. I’m still curious whether the address remaining in email logs is a glitch. Seems like that could be a GDPR/PII type of concern.

Yes, mine are kept 90 days – so I probably just don’t have more messages-to-deleted-users to see there. I might have spent too much time reading threads about GDPR concerns, account deletion, etc., and took away an incorrect notion about addresses being immediately purged.

Deleted user address appears in email log

Product Support

Moin October 18, 2025, 12:12pm 3

I think the 60 days define how long staff can easily delete a user. The 60 days are used in the warning shown to staff on the user’s admin page

Self deletion is based on Delete user self max post count

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Deleted user address appears in email log

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