How to Delete Your Wattpad Account (and What Happens to Your Stories)

To delete your Wattpad account, sign in on the Wattpad website, open your account settings, and choose the option to close or delete your account, then confirm with your password. Back up your stories first, because Wattpad describes deletion as removing your stories and profile from the site, and you can’t get them back. If you pay for Wattpad Premium or bought Coins through an app store, cancel the subscription there; deleting doesn’t refund purchases.

For many writers, Wattpad holds years of work, some of it written as a teenager under a pen name they’d now rather not have linked to them. This guide covers the steps, the gentler alternatives, and what to do about copies of your stories that have spread beyond Wattpad.

Delete the account, or just the stories?

You may not need to delete everything. Wattpad gives you several levels of control.

Option	What happens	Good for
Unpublish a story	The story goes back to drafts. Readers can’t see it, but you keep the text.	Old work you’re embarrassed by but want to keep
Delete a story	The story is removed from your account permanently.	Work you never want back
Change your username	Your profile gets a new name.	Distancing yourself from an old pen name without losing your library
Delete the account	Your profile and stories are removed from Wattpad.	Leaving the platform for good

If the worry is that someone might connect a pen name to your real identity, check your profile first. Remove your real name, photo, location and links to other social accounts. That alone often solves the problem without losing anything.

Before you delete: back up your work

1. Save every story you might want again. Open each story and copy the chapters into a document on your own device, including drafts that were never published. Keep a copy in cloud storage too. Wattpad’s help center describes whether it currently offers any export tool, but copying by hand works regardless.
2. Save your reading lists and library if they matter. A list of titles and authors is enough to find them again from a new account.
3. Cancel Premium or subscriptions. If you subscribed on an iPhone or Android phone, cancel in the App Store or Google Play. If you subscribed on the website, cancel in Wattpad’s settings. Unused Coins are generally lost when the account closes.
4. Check for any contracts. If your work is part of a Wattpad program, a paid story arrangement or a publishing or adaptation deal, read that agreement or contact Wattpad before deleting. Deleting an account doesn’t necessarily end a contract.
5. Save evidence of harassment. If someone left abusive comments or messages, screenshot them with usernames and dates, and report them first. Our guide on how to stop cyberbullying covers next steps.

How to delete your Wattpad account

Wattpad adjusts its settings pages from time to time, so these steps are general. Its help center has the current path.

1. Sign in to Wattpad on the website. Some account options are easier to find on the web than in the app.
2. Open your settings from the profile menu.
3. Find the option to close or delete your account, usually at the bottom of the account settings.
4. Read Wattpad’s explanation of what will be removed, then enter your password and confirm.
5. Uninstall the app from your phone and tablet.

If you can’t sign in because you’ve lost access to the email address, use Wattpad’s official help center to contact support and explain that you want the account closed. Be ready to show the account is yours.

What happens to stories, comments and your pen name

Wattpad’s help center describes account deletion as removing your profile and your stories from the site. Check its current article before you confirm, because details such as how comments you left on other people’s stories and messages you sent are handled can change.

• Your stories: taken off Wattpad, so readers can no longer find them there. Anyone who added them to a library loses access.
• Comments and messages: read Wattpad’s current article for how these are treated. If there are specific comments you regret, delete them individually before closing the account, so you’re not relying on how deletion handles them.
• Your pen name: your username leaves the site with the account and may later become available to someone else.
• Company records: like most platforms, Wattpad may keep some information for a period for legal, safety or billing reasons, as its privacy policy describes.

When your stories have been copied elsewhere

Wattpad stories are sometimes reposted on other sites or apps without permission, occasionally under someone else’s name. Deleting your account doesn’t touch those copies, but you still own the copyright in your writing.

1. Search for a distinctive line. Put a unique sentence from your story in quotes and search for it. This finds reposts faster than searching the title.
2. Ask the site to remove it. Most sites have a contact or report route for stolen content.
3. Use a copyright takedown if they ignore you. Our guide to filing a DMCA takedown notice explains how, and only file one for work you genuinely wrote.
4. Clean up search results. Once a page is gone, our guide on how to remove outdated content from Google covers refreshing the result.

If you wrote on Wattpad when you were younger

A lot of Wattpad writing was done by teenagers, and it’s normal to look back on it with some embarrassment. That on its own doesn’t mean the account has to go.

• Nobody expects teen writing to be polished. Most people who come across old fan fiction treat it as a hobby, not a character reference.
• The link to your real name is usually the issue. If your pen name, profile photo or bio connects to your current identity, breaking that link often matters more than deleting the stories.
• Be more careful with content that could hurt someone. If an old story or comment targeted a real person, such as a classmate, delete it whatever you decide about the account.
• Parents can help but shouldn’t take over. If your teen wants to leave Wattpad, back up the work with them first. Writing they’re proud of later is easy to lose in a rushed cleanup.

If you’re a parent weighing wider privacy questions about a teen’s online accounts, our guide to protecting your child’s online reputation covers the bigger picture.

A worked example

This scenario is illustrative, not a real client. Talia wrote fan fiction on Wattpad as a teenager under a pen name. Now applying for teaching jobs, she found that a search of her pen name led to an old profile that included her first name and hometown.

1. She copied all nine of her stories into documents and saved them to cloud storage.
2. She deleted a few comments she’d left on other stories that she no longer stood by.
3. She closed her account from the website settings and uninstalled the app.
4. A quoted-sentence search found one of her stories reposted on a fan site. She emailed the site owner, who took it down, and then asked Google to refresh the outdated result.

Common mistakes

• Deleting before backing up. Your stories can’t be restored once the account is closed.
• Deleting when unpublishing would do. If you just want work hidden, unpublishing keeps it safe in drafts.
• Forgetting subscriptions and Coins. Cancel Premium through whoever bills you, and spend or accept losing Coins first.
• Leaving personal details on a pen-name profile. A real name or hometown in a bio is what usually links the two.
• Ignoring other old accounts. Writers often have profiles on Tumblr or similar sites too. Our guide to deleting a Tumblr account covers that one.

If old writing or a pen name is showing up when employers or others search your name, our personal reputation management team can help plan removals and push better results forward.

Frequently asked questions

Do my stories stay on Wattpad after I delete my account?

Wattpad describes deletion as removing your profile and stories from the site. Copies on other sites, reposts and screenshots aren’t affected.

Can I recover my Wattpad stories after deleting my account?

Generally no. Back up every story, including drafts, before you delete.

Can I hide my stories without deleting my account?

Yes. Unpublishing a story moves it back to drafts so readers can’t see it, and you keep the text.

Does deleting Wattpad cancel Premium?

Not necessarily. If you subscribed through the App Store or Google Play, cancel there. Deleting the account doesn’t refund purchases or unused Coins.