Account and Privacy Resources

We’re a purpose-driven company that has always focused on the well-being of our community. And we’re going to stay that way. To do that, we need to build a sustainable business that can support our continued growth and our small team. Advertising within the app has never been on the table; selling your data hasn’t been either. Plus, and this community’s support of it, is part of the equation. Now this change to how long we store Polos for free is too.

By making this change, our team will be able to invest more time, resources, and creative energy into what we do best: building new and better ways for you to feel close to the people who matter most.

Polos are stored free in your account for 12 months. That 12-month timeline starts the month the Polo is received. After 12 months, the Polo is moved from your chat archive to trash near the first of the following month. Once in trash, you have an another month to download and save Polos before they are removed from your account.

The first removal of Polos older than 12 months will begin 11/1/2023.

You can choose to receive at least two notifications before Polos are removed from your account: 1) the day your Polos are moved from your chat archive to trash and 2) the day before a Polo is permanently removed from your account. Make sure you have notifications enabled to receive these messages. To check your notification status navigate to Settings in the app > Notifications and ensure that “Do Not Disturb” and “Send Me Fewer Notifications” are not toggled on.

The recipient of your Polos can decide what they want to do with Polos they receive from you. They can download the Polo to their device, provided you allow forwarding and downloading of your messages. If they are a paid member (Plus or Unlimited Storage subscriber), they will have unlimited storage and can keep the message within their chats beyond 12 months. If they are not a paid member, the message will be permanently removed from their account after 12 months.

We are committed to giving you control over your content. When you delete your sent Polos, they are deleted from your account, recipient accounts, and our servers.

You can delete sent Polos that are still available to you in the app by pressing on the Polo thumbnail within the storyline and then selecting and confirming “Delete.” From the chat archive, play the Polo and then select and confirm “Delete.”

To remove received Polos from your chat archive or storyline, follow the same process above and select "Remove." Doing so will only remove the Polo from your chat archive and storyline, not the sender’s.

You can also request deletion of all your sent Polos or all your sent Polos in a particular chat by emailing customer support at privacy@marcopolo.me.

If you want to read more about how we handle content or how to exercise your data privacy rights, review our Privacy Policy.

Unlimited storage is available through our paid subscriptions. There are two ways to keep your Polos in the app longer than 12 months.

Marco Polo Plus and Family subscribers have unlimited storage included as part of their subscription at no additional charge.

For those who are not ready to upgrade to Plus, the new Unlimited Storage plan offers unlimited storage for $47.99 a year ($4.00 a month) or $7.99 monthly. This option doesn't have the premium features of Plus but does give the subscriber the ability to store all Polos within all their chats beyond the 12-month free limit.

Each Polo is stored free for 12 months. You can download and save Polos at any point during that time, including once your Polos move to trash. You can also upgrade to Plus or the Unlimited Storage plan to restore Polos currently in trash. Upgrading to a paid subscription might not restore all Polos that were removed from your account. Polos can only be restored to your account after removal if they were not deleted by the recipient or from our servers.

In order to make the process of downloading and saving your Polos quicker and easier, we recently launched an upgraded chat archive experience that enables you to download and save multiple Polos at once. Learn more here.

Please accept our sincerest condolences on the loss of your loved one. We understand how important it is to preserve the memories you exchanged.

To report the passing of your loved one and preserve their account and Polos, please reach out to contact@marcopolo.me. You will need to provide supporting documentation (link to an obituary or a valid death certificate) so we can assist you.

Once the report is confirmed with supporting documentation, all Polos will be preserved within existing chats for one year beyond their respective expiration date, and the account will be protected from deletion due to inactivity for three years. This gives you and the account holder’s friends and family additional time to download and save those Polos.

Note that we will respect the privacy settings the account holder had in place, which might be to restrict downloading and forwarding of their Polos.

It's heartening to learn that you were able to use Marco Polo to stay connected. We're here to help in whatever way we can.