How to Delete Attention! User Data

If you use Attention! v2 and would like to delete all the data we have saved about you, this article will walk you through the process.

Warning: this will permanently delete all data and cannot be undone

Getting Started

In order to delete your user data, you will need to be able to send raw HTTP requests. There are a variety of tools to do this; we recommend Postman and this guide will demonstrate using it, but Telnet, CURL, and others will work just as well.

Step 1: Getting an Authentication Token

In order to delete your account, you will need an authentication token.

When you first open Postman, you should see a screen something like this:

Default Postman window, with no text entered.

In order to get your authentication token, you will need to do a handful of things. First, click on GET and select POST instead. Second, enter https://attention.aracroproducts.com/api/v2/api_token_auth/ into the request URL bar. Third, select “Body” from under the URL bar.

An image of the Postman window with the request type box highlighted, the url bar highlighted, and the body tab highlighted.

Next, select x-www-form-urlencoded and enter the following key-value pairs:

username: <your username> password: <your password>

Fill your username and your password in with the appropriate values. Then, click “Send”.

You should see a result something like this:

The Postman window with the token response underlined

The part you need to keep track of is the long sequence of letters and numbers in quotes after "token":

Step 2: Deleting Your Data

Now, change the request type from POST to DELETE. Replace the URL with https://attention.aracroproducts.com/api/v2/delete_user_data/. Leave the username and password as is. Click on the “Headers” tab.

Postman window with delete, url, and headers highlighted

For the key, enter Authorization. For the value, enter Token <your token>. Replace <your token> with the value you got in step 1.

Postman window with header line highlighted

When you click “Send”, your account will be deleted (unless you entered your username/password/token wrong). After your account is deleted, someone else will be able to take your username! (They won’t inherit your friends, though – your friends won’t receive messages from the new person until they add them again, even though the username is the same).

On success, you should see a response like this:

Postman window showing a response of
{
"success": true,
"message": "Successfully deleted user data",
"data": null
}

Troubleshooting

Postman with a response of
{
"non_field_errors": [
"Unable to log in with provided credentials."
]
}

This indicates that your username or password was incorrect

This response indicates that the wrong method was used. Check that you correctly set the method to POST (in step 1) or DELETE (in step 2).

Postman window with response saying
{
"detail": "Invalid token."
}

This response indicates that the provided token didn’t match any accounts.

Postman window with response
{
"success": false,
"message": "Forbidden",
"data": null
}

This indicates that the token is valid, but the token did not match the credentials provided (or the username/password combination wasn’t valid).

A Postman window with the header value of "Toke <your token>" and response
{
"detail": "Authentication credentials were not provided."
}

The token was not correctly provided. Check that the key and value are spelled correctly, that they are in the header, and that the key-value pair has the checkbox marked (in the above image, note how it says “Toke” instead of “Token”).