# Deleted user address appears in email log
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/deleted-user-address-appears-in-email-log/385760
**Category:** Support
**Tags:** email, gdpr
**Created:** [October 15, 2025, 8:31pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/deleted-user-address-appears-in-email-log/385760 "2025-10-15T20:31:19Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ToddZ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ToddZ)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2025, 8:31pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/deleted-user-address-appears-in-email-log/385760/1 "2025-10-15T20:31:19Z")
In reviewing the email log, I noticed that we would appear to be emailing an address that doesn’t have a user:
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”…
> [@Is there a way to retrieve information about deleted users?](https://meta.discourse.org/t/is-there-a-way-to-retrieve-information-about-deleted-users/166031/4):
>
> 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.
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### Author:  [@ToddZ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ToddZ)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2025, 5:52pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/deleted-user-address-appears-in-email-log/385760/2 "2025-10-17T17:52:24Z")
Also: this self-deleted user’s single post (which got deleted too) was 10 months old.
Shouldn’t this user’s self-deletion have been prevented by this setting?:
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### Author:  [@Moin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Moin)
#### Post date: [October 18, 2025, 12:12pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/deleted-user-address-appears-in-email-log/385760/3 "2025-10-18T12:12:28Z")
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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### Author:  [@ToddZ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ToddZ)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2025, 7:37am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/deleted-user-address-appears-in-email-log/385760/4 "2025-10-21T07:37:16Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@Moin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Moin)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2025, 7:51am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/deleted-user-address-appears-in-email-log/385760/5 "2025-10-21T07:51:14Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@ToddZ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ToddZ)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2025, 8:13am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/deleted-user-address-appears-in-email-log/385760/6 "2025-10-21T08:13:30Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2025, 8:13am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/deleted-user-address-appears-in-email-log/385760/7 "2025-11-20T08:13:39Z")
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