# What happens to photos on snap.as after delete

**URL:** <https://discuss.write.as/t/what-happens-to-photos-on-snap-as-after-delete/11958>\
**Category:** Help\
**Tags:** snapas\
**Created:** [May 2, 2024, 11:56am UTC](https://discuss.write.as/t/what-happens-to-photos-on-snap-as-after-delete/11958 "2024-05-02T11:56:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![xlexc](https://discuss.write.as/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/x/e19adc/32.png) [@xlexc](https://discuss.write.as/u/xlexc)\
**Post date:** [May 2, 2024, 11:56am UTC](https://discuss.write.as/t/what-happens-to-photos-on-snap-as-after-delete/11958/1 "2024-05-02T11:56:55Z")

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I know write.as and snap.as goal is to be privacy focused products. I would like to know what happens to content after deleting them. Specifically in the case of snap.as what happens to photos I uploaded and after I deleted?

Is it gone once and forever? Is a backup kept for a while? Is the content server side encrypted?

hope I get an answer from @matt as I assume he is the only one who could know

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**Author:** ![Oirevas](https://discuss.write.as/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/o/bb73d2/32.png) [@Oirevas](https://discuss.write.as/u/Oirevas)\
**Post date:** [November 22, 2024, 8:39am UTC](https://discuss.write.as/t/what-happens-to-photos-on-snap-as-after-delete/11958/2 "2024-11-22T08:39:02Z")

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I am also curious about this, @matt

Yesterday I deleted a photo from snap.as but, surprisingly, it still appears in my blog post.  
The link seems to still be valid. Will the photo eventually disappear and will the link be broken?

It is kind of important for me to know. I would like to be able to truly delete photos.

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**Author:** ![matt](https://discuss.write.as/user_avatar/discuss.write.as/matt/32/2760_2.png) [@matt](https://discuss.write.as/u/matt)\
**Post date:** [November 25, 2024, 10:41pm UTC](https://discuss.write.as/t/what-happens-to-photos-on-snap-as-after-delete/11958/3 "2024-11-25T22:41:47Z")

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Whenever you delete anything, it is **immediately** deleted from our storage. There is no “deleted” flag set or anything, where the actual file might linger around – it is erased.

However, you might notice delays like that due to the Content Delivery Network (CDN) we have on Snap.as. This makes photos load faster for viewers by copying them to servers around the world, to be closer to whoever is viewing them. But because of that, these servers also hold onto that content for longer, which may mean a little delay between deleting the content centrally (which happens immediately) and deleting it around the world.

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**Author:** ![Oirevas](https://discuss.write.as/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/o/bb73d2/32.png) [@Oirevas](https://discuss.write.as/u/Oirevas)\
**Post date:** [November 26, 2024, 5:55am UTC](https://discuss.write.as/t/what-happens-to-photos-on-snap-as-after-delete/11958/4 "2024-11-26T05:55:45Z")

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Thanks a lot for the explanation, that is precisely what I observed.

The link to a deleted image kept working, but just temporarily.

Cheers.