What Selfeed keeps, and for exactly how long

Ninety days free, all the years on Pro. That sentence is on most pages of this site, and it is short enough to be misread, so here it is in full — which file, which size, what happens on the ninety-first day, and what a lapsed subscription does not take away.

There are two files per day, not one

When you take a photograph, two things end up on the server. The frame is the 1024-pixel-wide version cropped around whatever the album is about — this is what the app draws, what a follower sees, and what the film is built from. The original is the full-resolution file your camera made, untouched.

The distinction is the whole retention policy, because the two are treated differently and they cost wildly different amounts to keep.

The frame is kept for good. On a free account. Forever.

Every day's frame stays. It is not deleted at ninety days, it is not deleted when a subscription lapses, and it is not deleted if you never pay anything. Your diary remains watchable and your film remains buildable regardless of what you spend.

That is a deliberate line rather than generosity: an app that can quietly take back the years you gave it is not a place to put years.

The original is kept ninety days free

On the ninety-first day, the original photograph of that day is deleted from the server. The frame stays. Nothing you look at in the app changes, because nothing in the app was reading the original — it exists for one purpose, which is putting a diary back onto a new phone.

On Selfeed Pro the originals are kept for as long as you keep the account.

What happens if Pro lapses

Nothing is deleted retroactively as a punishment. The frames stay, as always. Originals outside the ninety-day window are subject to the free policy again, so they will be removed on the normal schedule rather than immediately or vindictively.

Resubscribing does not resurrect an original that was already deleted — nobody can undelete a file — which is exactly why this page exists rather than a line of small print.

Why ninety, and one number rather than two

The import window is the same ninety days, on purpose. Two different numbers — a month of history and a season of storage — would have to be explained twice and remembered wrongly. One number says itself: free is the last season, Pro is all the years.

Ninety frames is also about eleven seconds of film at the frame rate a short series plays at. Somebody who fills in their last three months on the first evening sees a real film immediately, which is a much better first meeting with this than four seconds.

What is never public

The original photograph is not part of the public surface at all — not for followers, not through a share link, not anywhere. What another person can see is the 1024 frame, and only from the album you deliberately featured.

Deleting things

Deleting a photograph deletes both files. Deleting your account deletes everything, including the originals, and it is not a soft delete with a hidden recovery window.