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The process of deleting a site profile is explained in Help Center and elsewhere. But I don't see any instructions for requesting the deletion of one's chat profile. (Why delete it? To disassociate self from chat content, for example. The chat profile may contain information that identifies the author.)

Should such requests be communicated to a moderator via a flag, or sent to the Team using contact us form, or ...?

The answer might be different in two scenarios:

  1. There is still a site profile to which the chat profile is attached (the "parent" of chat profile).
  2. The parent no longer exists (for example, SO profile was deleted but chat.SO account still exists).
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As of today, chat accounts will be removed when the last qualifying main-site account is removed. Henceforth,

  • deleting your Stack Overflow account will delete your associated chat account on chat.stackoverflow.com
  • deleting your Meta Stack Exchange account will delete your associated chat account on chat.meta.stackexchange.com
  • deleting all of your site accounts will delete your chat.stackexchange.com account

Note that merging doesn't do any of this. Thus, merging accounts where the account being merged from has an associated chat profile will very likely leave things in a bit of a weird state.

Also note that if the chat profile has posted 1,000 or more messages, the automatic deletion will not take place; a developer needs to delete the account manually.

So for merge cases, deletion of only chat profiles, all account deletions prior to August 16, 2016, cases where the chat profile has posted 1,000 or more messages, and all other activities that caused chat account weirdness... you'll have to contact us if you want something done. The link at the bottom of every page should suffice; just select "other".

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  • This doesn't clearly answer number 1 in the question: if one wants to delete a chat profile while keeping their site profiles intact. Yes, the answer is still to contact SE, but your answer as written doesn't make this clear.
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Commented Feb 24, 2018 at 13:02
  • Last paragraph, @Ano - everything else requires manual intervention (and for non-trivial amounts of participation, high probability of needing dev approval). I'll edit to be more explicit.
    – Shog9 Mod
    Commented Feb 24, 2018 at 23:13
  • Does this automatic removal remove all of the user's posts from all time in chat?
    – Catija
    Commented Mar 1, 2018 at 0:39
  • 1
    Their messages are anonymized first, @Catija. Then the user is deleted, but the messages remain.
    – Shog9 Mod
    Commented Mar 1, 2018 at 0:47
  • Which is different than destroying a chat account, which actually deletes all of the messages?
    – Catija
    Commented Mar 1, 2018 at 0:48
  • 1
    Right, @catija. It's like anonymizing and then destroying.
    – Shog9 Mod
    Commented Mar 1, 2018 at 0:49
  • @JourneymanGeek Per a staff member's comment, chat profiles aren't automatically deleted if they've posted more than 1,000 messages. Also see Shog's first comment above.
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Commented Dec 6, 2018 at 0:51
  • I don't see a precise number. citation needed. I don't really think the comment is definitive
    – Journeyman Geek Mod
    Commented Dec 6, 2018 at 0:58
  • @JourneymanGeek The comment I linked (written by animuson) specifically states 1,000.
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Commented Dec 6, 2018 at 1:06
  • completely different author, going off memory. I think its better to leave it as a comment
    – Journeyman Geek Mod
    Commented Dec 6, 2018 at 1:09
  • this seems like the nuclear option. just allow users the ability to delete chat messages they don't approve of being moved from a comment to chat and this wouldn't be necessary.
    – Michael
    Commented Aug 12, 2020 at 5:00

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