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What happens when you remove your family from Willowfolio?
There are two separate removal paths: a reversible hide and a permanent deletion.
You have trusted Willowfolio with your child's home education records, observations, and photos. That trust matters, and we are not going to treat it casually. This article exists so you can read exactly what happens before anything changes, not because something has gone wrong.
One path is permanent and one is reversible. They work differently, and you choose which one applies.
What is the difference between hiding our family and permanently deleting it?
They are different operations with different outcomes.
Hiding (operator soft-delete) means we tombstone your family on our side (mark it as hidden on our servers, with the records preserved underneath). Your family name disappears from the app, reports stop generating, and automated emails stop. Every member on the family sees the setup screen as though they had never set anything up. Underneath, every record stays on disk and can be restored.
Permanent deletion (in-app) means every record attached to the family is destroyed. Children, activity logs, observations, reading log, reports, schedules, and photos uploaded to activities or feedback are all removed. The underlying team is deleted too. After the 14-day cool-off (a 14-day window in which any parent can change their mind and cancel the request) finishes, nothing can be recovered.
In both cases, individual member accounts stay in place. Nobody loses access to their login.
How do I ask you to hide our family?
Email [email protected] from a parent email address linked to the account. Let us know you would like the family hidden, and we will confirm once it is done. There is nothing to click in the app for this option, because it is handled by us directly.
You do not need to give a reason. If you want to, that is fine, but we will process the request either way.
Can we come back later?
Yes. A hidden family can be restored at any time. Email [email protected] again and ask us to bring it back. Your children, activity logs, observations and reports will reappear exactly as they were.
This is the main reason to choose hiding over permanent deletion. If there is any chance you might want these records again, hiding keeps that door open.
What if we want everything actually gone?
Open https://app.willowfolio.com, go to Settings, scroll to the Family panel at the bottom, and follow the permanent deletion steps. You will need to type your family name to confirm. The family disappears from the app immediately, and a 14-day cool-off begins.
During those 14 days, any parent on the family can cancel the request from the same panel. Co-parents and tutors can see the pending status but cannot start or cancel it themselves.
After 14 days, every record is permanently deleted. This cannot be undone.
What does my co-parent see?
If the family is hidden, every member (parents, co-parents, tutors) sees the setup screen. There is no banner, no error message, and no notification. It simply looks as though the family has not been set up yet. Your co-parent will not receive an explanation from us, so you may want to let them know before you request a hide.
If the family is going through permanent deletion, co-parents and tutors can see that a deletion request is pending. They cannot cancel it. Only a parent on the family can cancel during the cool-off.
How Aisha and Tariq in Sheffield used a temporary hide
Aisha and Tariq had been using Willowfolio for just over a year when Aisha's father died. They were home educating two children in a terraced house in Hillsborough, and the months after the bereavement were overwhelming. Aisha could not face thinking about learning records. She also could not bear losing the eight months of observations she had already logged.
She emailed [email protected] and asked for the family to be hidden. The team confirmed within a day. Reports stopped, emails stopped, and the app went quiet.
Six months later, when things felt steadier, Tariq emailed to ask for the family to be restored. Everything came back as it was: children, activity logs, observations, photos. They carried on from where they had left off, without losing a single record.
If Aisha had wanted everything permanently deleted instead, she would have done it herself in the app. The email route was the right choice because she knew she wanted to come back.