5.1.1(v)Apple App Store

Guideline 5.1.1(v), Account Deletion

If someone can create an account in your app, they must be able to delete it in your app. Not email support, not a web form they have to find, an option inside the app that starts the deletion and finishes it.

That is the whole of 5.1.1(v), and it is one of the few rejections where the reviewer's test is binary: they made an account, they looked in settings, they did not find it.

How the rejection is worded

Guideline 5.1.1(v) - Data Collection and Storage

We noticed that your app supports account creation but does not appear to include an option to initiate deletion of the account.

Next Steps: To resolve this issue, please revise your app to support account deletion. Apps that support account creation must also allow users to initiate deletion of their account from within the app.

Two variants show up when you have already tried once:

Your app offers an option to deactivate the user's account, but does not allow the user to delete their account.

The account deletion option in your app directs the user to a website. Please revise your app so that account deletion can be initiated within the app.

What it means

Apple's requirement is that account creation and account deletion are symmetrical. If you built the sign-up, you build the way out, at roughly the same cost to the user.

The rule has been enforced since 2022 and applies to apps that let people create an account of any kind, including accounts created through a social login.

What counts:

Initiated in the app. The user finds it without leaving, without contacting anyone, without knowing your support address.
Deletion, not deactivation. A pause, a hide, a "disable my profile" is not this. The account and its data go.
The whole account. Clearing local data or signing the user out is not deletion. The server-side record has to go too, apart from anything you are legally required to retain, and if you retain something, say what and why.
Reachable. Settings → Account → Delete Account is the shape reviewers expect. Buried three modals deep behind a support article is the shape that gets rejected again.

Why it happens

Deletion exists, but only on the web. Common when the mobile app came second.
Deletion exists, but only by request. A support email address, a contact form, or a chatbot that raises a ticket.
The button says Delete and the code deactivates. Often a deliberate retention choice by someone who was not in the review conversation.
Social-login accounts have no path. Users who signed in with Apple or Google never get an account screen at all.
The option is gated behind an active subscription. "Cancel your subscription first" is a wall, and reviewers treat it as one.
It is there, and the reviewer never found it. No steps in App Review notes, and a deletion option living somewhere unusual.

How to fix it

Put it in the app's own settings. A clearly labelled "Delete Account" item under an account or profile section. If someone can sign up in three taps, deletion should not take ten.
Make it actually delete. The server record, the profile, the content the user owns, the auth identity. Decide up front what happens to shared or public content, anonymise or remove it, and be able to describe that choice.
Revoke Sign in with Apple tokens. If the account was created with Sign in with Apple, deleting your own record is not enough: you are expected to revoke the user's token through the Sign in with Apple REST API. Skipping this leaves the user's Apple ID still listing your app under Settings → Sign in with Apple.
Confirm, but don't obstruct. A confirmation step is explicitly fine. Apple would rather you prevented accidental deletion. Re-authentication is fine. A retention offer that hides the confirm button, three "are you sure" screens, or a cooling-off period the user cannot skip are not.
Handle the subscription honestly. You cannot cancel an App Store subscription on the user's behalf. Deleting their account will not stop the billing. Tell them that on the confirmation screen and link straight to https://apps.apple.com/account/subscriptions: then delete the account anyway. Refusing to delete until they cancel is the failure mode.
If deletion has to finish on the web, start it in the app. The in-app option must open a page that deletes the account, not your homepage, not a help centre, not a login wall. This is the narrowest path through and the easiest to get wrong, an in-app path is safer.
Know the regulated-industry carve-out before you claim it. Apps in areas like banking and healthcare, or where identity has to be verified in person, may need an additional human step. That is a reason to offer support as well, not instead. If you rely on it, name the regulation in your reply.
Tell the reviewer where it is. One line in App Review notes: sign in with the demo account, tap Profile → Settings → Delete Account. Rejections that were only ever a discoverability problem get cleared by this alone.

What to send

Thank you for the review. Account deletion is available in this build at Profile → Settings → Delete Account. It is reachable from a signed-in state in two taps and requires no contact with support.

Choosing it permanently deletes the account and its associated data on our servers, including [content types]; for accounts created with Sign in with Apple we also revoke the token. The confirmation screen tells users that an active App Store subscription must be cancelled separately and links to the subscription settings, but deletion is not blocked by an active subscription.

Demo account and step-by-step instructions are in the App Review notes.

Source

Apple, App Store Review Guidelines, 5.1.1: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#data-collection-and-storage