Guideline 5.1.1(v): in-app account deletion is required
If your app supports account creation, it has to offer account deletion from inside the app. A support email address, a web form, or a message telling people to contact you does not satisfy it: the path has to be in the app, and it has to delete the account rather than deactivate it.
Why it matters
This is Guideline 5.1.1(v), and it binds any app where a person can create an account. If the app only signs people in to accounts created elsewhere, the requirement does not apply, which is why the check asks about account creation first.
Deleting the account means the account, not the local data. Clearing what is stored on the device while the server-side account continues to exist is the most common way apps fail this while believing they pass.
Reviewers test it directly: they create an account and look for the way to delete it. A path buried several screens deep still counts, but one that only exists on your website does not.
How to fix it
- Add an account deletion action inside the app, reachable by someone who is signed in, typically from account or profile settings.
- Make it delete the account and the data associated with it, not just sign the user out or hide their content.
- If deletion is not instant because of a legal retention period, say so in the interface and complete it afterwards.
- If your app genuinely has no account creation, be ready to say so: the requirement does not bind you, and the report records that answer rather than assuming.
The guidelines behind it
Read from Apple’s App Review Guidelines as last updated October 16, 2026.
What ReviewAhead checks
In-app account deletion. Apps that support account creation must offer in-app account deletion.
- Whether the app supports account creation, from your answer and from what the project suggests.
- Whether an in-app deletion path exists, and records the answer it rests on.
- Derives "not required" automatically when you have said the app has no account creation, rather than asking the same thing twice.
Apple’s own documentation for this requirement: developer.apple.com. Where this page and Apple disagree, Apple is right and this page is a bug.