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How to Remove Subscribers from Your Email List
How to Remove Subscribers from Your Email List

How to delete and/or manually unsubscribe someone from your email list, and the difference between these two actions.

Updated over a week ago

From accidental imports to list cleanups, sometimes you have to remove subscribers from your list.

You have two options: either delete them entirely, or manually unsubscribe them on their behalf. In this article, we'll go over the difference between these two options, and when you might want to use each.

How to delete someone from your list

You can delete subscribers on an individual basis from the subscriber's profile, by clicking the Delete Subscriber button in the left sidebar:

Or, you can delete multiple subscribers at once via a bulk action.

How to unsubscribe someone from your list

You can manually unsubscribe someone from their profile by clicking the Unsubscribe button in the left sidebar:

NOTE: It is not possible to perform manual unsubscribes via bulk action at this time.

What's the difference between deleting & unsubscribing?

* Deleting a subscriber removes them from your list entirely along with their historical data.

* Unsubscribing someone maintains their historical data, and is reversible if you have the subscriber's permission.

Deleting is handy for things like mistaken imports, where the subscriber(s) should never have been added to your list in the first place, as well as removing cold subscribers who haven't been engaging with your content anyways.

On the other hand, if you manually unsubscribe someone from your email list, it'll be the same as if they clicked the 'Unsubscribe' button in one of your emails. Their status on your list will become 'Canceled' and you will no longer be able to contact them via ConvertKit.

However, their subscriber history will be maintained so you can still reference it, and they can be re-activated on your list in the future if they request it.

☝️ A good rule of thumb:

Do you need to maintain the subscriber's historical data (tags, sequence subscriptions, sending history, etc.) for future reference, and/or possible re-instatement on your list?

If yes, unsubscribe them. If no, delete them.

A note about GDPR

If one of your EU-based subscribers exercises their right to be forgotten under GDPR, please use this form to let us know rather than deleting them yourself. We'll take care of deleting that subscriber and any records of them from your account.

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