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Data privacy and retention

Set automatic data retention in Owneli, preview what a purge would delete, use legal holds, and control clinical charting for health records.

Updated Aug 14, 2026

Owneli can automatically purge data older than a retention period you choose, with a dry-run preview before anything is deleted and legal holds to exempt records you must keep. It's configured at Settings → Compliance & data → Data & privacy (admins only).

How do I set a data retention period?

Turn on automatic retention

Flip Enable automatic data purge on.

Choose the period

Set the retention window in days — anywhere from 30 to 3650 (ten years). Data older than this becomes eligible for deletion.

Preview before you commit

Click the preview button. Owneli runs a dry run and shows exactly how many records would be eligible under the period you typed — before anything is actually purged.

Save

The retention policy saves with the rest of your workspace defaults.

A purge is permanent. Always run the preview and read the numbers before saving a shorter period — "365" where you meant "3650" is a very different policy.

What never gets purged

DataWhy
The audit logAppend-only and immutable — it's your evidence trail. See Read the audit log.
Records under a legal holdExplicitly exempted until the hold is released.

A legal hold pins specific records so the retention purge skips them — for a dispute, an investigation, or a regulatory request. Active holds are listed on this tab, and an admin can release a hold when the obligation ends, returning those records to the normal retention rules.

Clinical charting (health information)

The same tab carries the clinical charting switch. It's off by default because it changes what kind of data your workspace stores: turning it on enables treatment charts on appointments, which is protected health information.

Clinical charts get their own retention period — separate from, and typically much longer than, general data retention, because health-record laws commonly require charts be kept for many years.

Deleting a client on request (a GDPR-style erasure) is a separate flow from retention. Clinical treatment records are archived and access-restricted rather than destroyed, because retention law overrides the erasure request for health records.

Common questions

Does retention delete my audit history?

No — the audit log is excluded entirely.

Can I see what a different period would delete without changing anything?

Yes. Type the candidate number of days and run the preview; it's a dry run and deletes nothing.

Who can change these settings?

Admins. Access to read the audit log is a separate capability, so review and configuration can be held by different people.

Keep reading

Related

2
Read the audit logSee who did what and when in Owneli — filter the audit log by person, client, action, or date, and read the before/after of any change.Roles and permissionsThe four starting roles, the two axes that control access, and how to build a custom role without locking yourself out.