How to delete your 23andMe data (and what they keep)

A privacy guide · Updated June 2026

Health data privacy

23andMe is shutting down? Start with the full checklist — download, delete, and read your DNA privately.

Why people are deleting their 23andMe data now

For most of its life, 23andMe was pitched as a fun, one-time purchase: spit in a tube, learn about your ancestry, get a handful of health and trait reports. What that framing quietly glossed over is that your genome doesn't expire. Long after you've read your reports, a copy of your genetic data — the single most permanent, identifying, and un-changeable piece of information you own — sits on a company's servers, governed by whatever privacy policy is in force at the time and whoever happens to own the company.

That last point is what changed the conversation. 23andMe went through well-publicised financial trouble, including a bankruptcy process, and the prospect that its enormous database of customer DNA could change hands as a corporate asset. This isn't a fringe worry: the reality is that when a company that holds genetic data is sold or restructured, the data is often treated as part of the deal. A privacy policy you agreed to under one owner can be updated by a new one, and your consent choices don't automatically travel with you. We wrote about this dynamic in detail in what happens to your DNA data when a company is sold, and it's the single strongest reason to think about whether you still want your genome hosted somewhere you don't control.

On top of the corporate-sale concern, there's the general data-broker and breach risk that applies to any large store of sensitive personal data. Genetic information is uniquely bad to have leaked: you can change a password after a breach, but you can't change your DNA. It also implicates your blood relatives, who never consented to anything. None of this requires assuming bad intent from any specific company — it's simply the structural risk of keeping something permanent and irreplaceable on someone else's infrastructure.

If any of that resonates, deleting is a reasonable, measured response. The key is to do it in the right order so you don't lose access to your own data in the process.

Step 1: download your raw data first

Deletion is permanent — once you delete, you can't get your file back. So before anything, download your raw data and keep your own copy. It's free and takes a minute. That file is yours regardless of what happens to the company. Once you have it, you can still read it whenever you like — our browser-based DNA explorer opens the file locally so you keep the insights without keeping anything on 23andMe's servers.

Why this matters so much: the raw data file is the actual genotyping result — hundreds of thousands of genetic markers 23andMe read from your sample. Everything they ever showed you (ancestry composition, health predisposition reports, carrier status, traits) was derived from that file. If you keep it, you keep the ability to re-derive all of that yourself, forever, without 23andMe in the loop. If you delete first and download later, you've lost it permanently — there is no undo and no "recover my file" button.

The download is a plain text file (a .txt, usually delivered inside a .zip). It's small, it's portable, and it opens in any tool built to read the 23andMe format. Store it somewhere you trust — ideally on your own device or an encrypted drive, not scattered across email attachments. If you want a fuller walkthrough of the format and where the file comes from, see how to download your 23andMe raw data.

Step 2: delete your account and data

On a computer (not the app):

1. Sign in at 23andme.com.
2. Click your profile (top right) → Settings.
3. Scroll to 23andMe Data near the bottom.
4. Choose the option to permanently delete your account and data.
5. 23andMe emails you a confirmation link — click it to finalize (deletion doesn't happen until you do).

The confirmation step is easy to miss. Until you click the link in that email, nothing is actually deleted — the request just sits pending. If you never receive the email, check your spam folder and confirm you used the same email address associated with the account. Only when you've clicked through and seen the confirmation is the deletion in motion.

Do this from a desktop or laptop browser. Historically the deletion controls have lived in the web account settings rather than the mobile app, so if you can't find the option in the app, that's expected — switch to a computer.

Also withdraw research consent and discard your sample

Two settings are worth handling alongside the account deletion, because they cover things a plain "delete account" may not fully address on its own:

• Research consent. If you ever opted into 23andMe Research, go into your research/consent settings and withdraw consent. This stops your data being used in new studies going forward. (As covered below, it can't pull your data out of studies already completed — but it closes the door on future use.)
• Stored saliva sample. When you registered your kit, you may have chosen to have 23andMe's lab store your biological sample rather than discard it. Look for the sample-storage preference in your settings and set it to discard. Submitting a full account deletion request also directs the lab to destroy a stored sample, but it's worth setting this explicitly so there's no ambiguity.

Handling these two makes the deletion as complete as the platform allows — you're closing the account, stopping future research use, and instructing the lab to destroy the physical sample, not just the digital record.

What 23andMe keeps even after you delete

Here's the part most guides skip. Per 23andMe's own Privacy Statement, the lab is legally required to retain some data even after deletion. In their words, 23andMe and its lab "will retain your Genetic Information, date of birth, and sex as required for compliance with applicable legal obligations … even if you chose to delete your account."

The legal basis is lab regulation — the federal CLIA rules, CAP accreditation, and California lab law — which require labs to keep test results for a minimum period (on the order of a couple of years). So:

• Your identifiable account is removed.
• A de-identified copy of the genotyping result is retained by the lab for that window.

It's not a loophole — it's the same retention rule every clinical lab follows. But it means "delete" is "delete everything they legally can," not an instant total erase. It's the honest way to think about deletion: you are removing the identifiable, linkable account and instructing them to stop using and to discard what they're not legally required to hold. That is meaningful and worth doing — it just isn't the same as the data never having existed.

What deletion can't undo: shared data

The bigger gap is anything already shared. If you consented to 23andMe Research, your data may already be in completed studies — and, in 23andMe's words, "data cannot be removed from research that's already been conducted." Withdrawing consent stops new use going forward, but can't retract what's done.

The same "can't unshare" principle applies to anything else that already left the platform: results you exported and emailed to a relative, a raw file you previously uploaded to a third-party interpretation site, or data shared with a partner service you connected in the past. Deleting your 23andMe account doesn't reach into those other copies. This is worth pausing on, because it's the whole reason the order of operations matters and why keeping your own single, controlled copy is the sane end state.

This is the deeper lesson of the whole 23andMe saga, and why what happens to your DNA when a company is sold matters: once your genome is on someone else's servers, you're trusting their policies, security, and corporate future with data you can never change.

What to do with your downloaded raw file afterwards

So you've saved your raw data and deleted your account. Now what? The instinct many people have is to immediately upload that file to another website to keep getting reports — a third-party ancestry matcher, a health-interpretation service, a wellness platform. Pause before you do.

Re-uploading your raw file to another cloud service recreates the exact situation you just walked away from: a copy of your permanent genetic data sitting on someone else's server, under their privacy policy, subject to their security and their corporate future. You've done the hard part of getting your data back under your own control — don't hand it straight back out.

The better model is to interpret the file privately, on your own device, where it never leaves your hands. Plenty of the reports 23andMe sold can be reproduced from the raw file directly. A few examples of what your raw data can tell you, and which we've written up as read-it-yourself guides:

• Health-relevant variants in general — see what your 23andMe raw data reveals about your health for an overview of what is and isn't in the file.
• BRCA status — the BRCA in your 23andMe raw data guide explains what the consumer chip does and doesn't cover.
• APOE and cognitive-aging risk — see APOE4 in your 23andMe raw data.

If you'd rather have a single tool do the reading for you, the best tools to interpret 23andMe raw data compares the main options — and, importantly, flags which ones keep your file local versus which ones upload it. For a broader mental model of local-versus-cloud handling of any health data, on-device vs. cloud health data privacy is a good primer, and our health data privacy checklist turns the principles into concrete steps.

Frequently asked questions

Does deleting my 23andMe account remove everything?

Not entirely, and it's important to be clear-eyed about this. Deleting removes your identifiable account and instructs the company to stop using and discard the data it isn't legally required to keep. But 23andMe's own policy states the lab must retain a de-identified copy of your genetic information, date of birth, and sex for a legally mandated period to comply with lab regulations (CLIA, CAP, California law). And any data already used in completed research can't be retracted. So deletion is "delete everything they legally can" — real and worthwhile, but not an instant total erasure.

What about my relatives — does deleting protect them too?

Only indirectly. Your DNA is shared with your biological relatives, so deleting your own account reduces the amount of your genetic data sitting on the platform, which is good for everyone connected to you. But it does nothing about a relative's own account — if a sibling, parent, or cousin has tested and kept their data on the platform, a large fraction of your shared DNA is still inferable from theirs. Each person controls their own account. If family privacy is your goal, the conversation has to include them.

Can I still access my ancestry or health results after deleting?

No — not from 23andMe. Once deletion is finalized, your account and its reports are gone and you can't log back in to view them. This is exactly why Step 1 matters. If you downloaded your raw data first, you keep the underlying file that all those reports were built from, and you can re-derive ancestry, health, and trait insights yourself from that file at any time. If you deleted without downloading, those results are not recoverable.

Should I download my raw data before deleting?

Yes, always. Deletion is permanent and there's no way to retrieve the file afterward. Download your raw DNA data first so you keep your own copy — it's free, quick, and it's the difference between walking away with your data and losing it.

Is it safe to re-upload my raw file to another DNA website?

You can, but consider whether you want to. Uploading your raw file to another cloud service puts a copy of your permanent genetic data back on someone else's servers — the same setup you just left. Reading the file locally on your own device avoids that entirely while still giving you the insights.

The takeaway

Delete your 23andMe data — it's worth doing, especially now. Just do it in the right order (download first), withdraw research consent, tell the lab to discard your sample, and go in clear-eyed that a de-identified lab copy persists by law and shared research data can't be clawed back.

Going forward, the safest model is to keep your genome under your own control. Quanome reads your raw DNA file on your device — it's never uploaded, so there's nothing sitting on a server to delete in the first place. For more on owning your health data, browse the rest of the Quanome blog.

Frequently asked questions

How do I delete my 23andMe data?

On a computer, sign in and go to Settings → 23andMe Data → and choose to permanently delete your account and data. You'll get a confirmation email; you must click the link to finalize. Download your raw data first — deletion is permanent.

Does 23andMe really delete everything?

Not entirely. 23andMe's own policy states the lab is legally required to retain some data — your genetic information, date of birth, and sex, in de-identified form — to comply with lab regulations (CLIA, CAP, California law). Your identifiable account is removed, but a de-identified record is kept for a retention period.

Can I remove my data from research I consented to?

No. In 23andMe's words, data cannot be removed from research that's already been conducted. Withdrawing consent stops your data being used in new studies (after a short window) but can't retract it from completed ones.

Should I download my raw data before deleting?

Yes. Deletion is permanent and you can't recover the file afterward. Download your raw DNA data first so you keep your own copy.