Data retention
This page explains, in plain words, how long QRForge keeps your data. The legal details are in our Privacy Policy.
Your content
Your QR codes, projects, landing pages, trails and their settings are kept for as long as you have an account. This includes archived QR codes, projects and trails. They are deleted when you delete your account.
Scans and analytics
QRForge keeps scan data at two levels of detail. The same rules apply on every plan.
| Data | Kept for | Then |
|---|---|---|
| Individual scan records (time, QR code, approximate country and city, device type, browser) | 540 days (about 18 months) | Deleted automatically |
| Daily totals (scans per day, by country, device and so on, and daily trail funnel counts) | 3 years | Deleted automatically |
| Individual trail visits | 30 days | Deleted automatically |
Every night, QRForge adds the day's scans to the daily totals, including the breakdowns by country, device and referrer. So when old individual records are deleted, your daily reports do not change. A few views need the individual records and cover a shorter period. See How far back can I look?
Individual scan records are first written to the app's database. That working copy is deleted after 30 days. The 540-day history is kept in our analytics warehouse.
If you connect Google Analytics 4, a copy of each scan's anonymous details is also sent to your own GA4 property. That copy is controlled by your GA4 settings and is not covered by the periods above.
How far back you can look
Your plan decides how much history you can see on the Analytics page:
| Plan | History you can view |
|---|---|
| No active plan | 30 days |
| Pro | 365 days |
| Agency | 730 days |
| Enterprise | 3 years |
This is how far back the page lets you look. The data itself is kept as described above, whatever your plan. If you upgrade, you can see further back, up to what is still stored.
What we store about the people who scan
QRForge does not ask people who scan your codes for any personal data. A scan record holds technical details only. The internet address is shortened (the last part is removed) and is used to estimate the country and city.
On trail pages, a small cookie with a random number helps count visitors. It is kept for up to 180 days in the visitor's browser. See Visitors vs page opens.
Exports and uploaded files
- CSV exports: the download link works for 7 days. The file is then removed.
- Uploaded images and audio are kept while a page, QR code or trail uses them. Files that nothing uses any more are removed by a weekly clean-up. Files uploaded in the last 30 days are always kept. A replaced or removed file can be deleted within days, so keep your own copy.
Your account
- When you delete your account, your QR codes, projects, landing pages, trails, custom domains and all your analytics are deleted. This includes the copies of your scan data in our analytics warehouse, not just what you see in the app. Those warehouse copies are deleted within a few hours, and normally within 2 days at the latest. See Export or delete your data.
- Copies in our backups are kept for at most 56 days before they expire. Deleted data in the analytics warehouse can be recovered by us for at most 14 days, and is then gone.
- Some records must be kept longer by law, for example invoices.
When a free trial ends
If your 7-day free trial ends and you do not subscribe, your QR codes, landing pages and trails stop working, and you can no longer edit them. Wi-Fi QR codes set to connect phones to the network directly keep working. Nothing is deleted yet.
- We email you the deletion date, and send a reminder about 2 days before it.
- The account and all its data are deleted no earlier than 7 days after the trial ends, and no earlier than 7 days after that email. This is the same deletion as when you delete your account yourself.
- Subscribe before the deletion date and everything works again, exactly as it was.
So that the same email address cannot start a second free trial, we keep a one-way code (a hash) made from your email address for 2 years, also after the account is deleted. It cannot be turned back into your address.
This applies only to the free trial started without a payment card. When a paid plan ends, nothing is deleted. See Plans and what's included.
Who is responsible for scan data?
For the scans of your QR codes, you decide why the data is collected, and QRForge processes it for you. See section 2.2 of the Terms of Service. Questions: contact support.