Exporting and deleting a companion chat is not uniform

What happened

As retrieved on 16 September 2026, Character.AI, Replika and Nomi each publish separate instructions for exporting a chat history and deleting an account. Character.AI's export article and its deletion article both route through a 'Manage Account & Data' settings screen and state that deletion is 'permanent'. Replika's help article states there is 'no way' to delete message history without deleting the whole account, and separately offers a GDPR erasure request form. Nomi's privacy policy states deleting an account removes personal information 'within 28 or so days'.

What the documents show

Only Replika documents a partial-deletion path distinct from full account deletion, through its erasure request form, which the article says the company will confirm 'within one month'. Character.AI documents export and deletion as parallel, similarly structured menu actions but does not state, in the article text, a processing timeframe for either. Nomi states a specific window, 'within 28 or so days', but ties it to full account deletion rather than a single-conversation option. None of the three articles reviewed describes an intermediate option to export a chat and delete only that chat while keeping the account active.

The mechanism

A 'delete' button on an account settings screen triggers an operational process, not an instant erasure. Replika's own guidance to manage its 'Memory' feature rather than delete history shows the company treats stored memory as separate from raw message logs. Nomi's privacy policy statement that a deletion request removes data except from a 'training or communications archive' is the same distinction seen in its privacy policy: deleting an account is a request that a backend process must carry out, on a stated or unstated schedule, and that process is defined by the company's own systems rather than by the delete button itself.

What it leaves open

None of the three help articles states whether deleting an account also removes any influence that chat had on model behaviour that was shaped, rather than simply stored, before deletion. That is an editorial reading beyond what these pages document.

• Does deleting an account state a specific processing timeframe?
• Is there a way to delete a single conversation without deleting the account?
• Does the article distinguish deleting stored data from deleting a model's learned behaviour?

The mechanics of an export or deletion button are documented in detail across all three apps; what happens afterward to data already used is documented far less consistently.