Documentation Experience Platform Advanced Data Lifecycle Management Guide

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Delete records

Last update: April 2, 2025

Topics:
Data Hygiene

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Use the Data Lifecycle workspace to delete records in Adobe Experience Platform based on their primary identities. These records can be tied to individual consumers or any other entity that is included in the identity graph.

IMPORTANT

The Record Delete feature is currently in Beta and available only in a limited release. It is not available to all customers. Record delete requests are only available for organizations in the limited release.

Record deletions are meant to be used for data cleansing, removing anonymous data, or data minimization. They are not to be used for data subject rights requests (compliance) as pertaining to privacy regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). For all compliance use cases, use Adobe Experience Platform Privacy Service instead.

Prerequisites

Deleting records requires a working understanding of how identity fields function in Experience Platform. Specifically, you must know the identity namespace values of the entities whose records you want to delete, depending on the dataset (or datasets) you are deleting them from.

Refer to the following documentation for more information on identities in Experience Platform:

Adobe Experience Platform Identity Service: Bridges identities across devices and systems, linking datasets together based on the identity fields defined by the XDM schemas they conform to.
Identity namespaces: Identity namespaces define the different types of identity information that can relate to a single person, and are a required component for each identity field.
Real-Time Customer Profile: Uses identity graphs to provide unified consumer profiles based on aggregated data from multiple sources, updated in near-real-time.
Experience Data Model (XDM): Provides standard definitions and structures for Experience Platform data through the use of schemas. All Experience Platform datasets conform to a specific XDM schema, and the schema defines which fields are identities.
Identity fields: Learn how an identity field is defined in an XDM schema.

Create a request

To start the process, select Data Lifecycle in the left navigation of the Experience Platform UI. The Data lifecycle requests workspace appears. Next, select Create request from the main page in the workspace.

The Data lifecycle requests workspace with Create request selected.

The request creation workflow appears. By default, the Delete record option is selected under the Requested Action section. Leave this option selected.

IMPORTANT

To improve efficiency and make dataset operations less expensive, organizations who have been moved to the Delta format can delete data from the Identity Service, Real-Time Customer Profile, and the data lake. This type of user is referred to as delta-migrated. Users from organizations who have been delta-migrated can choose to delete records from either a single or all datasets. Users from organizations that have not undergone delta migration are unable to selectively delete records from either a single dataset or all datasets, as shown in the image below. In this case, continue to the Provide identities section of the guide.

The request creation workflow with the Delete record option selected and highlighted.

Select datasets

The next step is to determine whether you want to delete records from a single dataset or all datasets. If this option is not available to you, continue to the Provide identities section of the guide.

Under the Record Details section, use the radio button to select between a specific dataset and all datasets. If you choose Select dataset, proceed to select the database icon ( ) to open a dialog that provides a list of available datasets. Select the desired dataset from the list followed by Done.

The Select dataset dialog with a dataset selected and Done highlighted.

If you want to delete records from all datasets, select All datasets.

The Select dataset dialog with the All datasets option selected.

NOTE

Selecting the All datasets option can cause the delete operation to take longer and may not result in accurate record deletion.

Provide identities

When deleting records, you must provide identity information so the system can determine which records are to be deleted. For any dataset in Experience Platform, records are deleted based on the identity namespace field that is defined by the dataset’s schema.

Like all identity fields in Experience Platform, an identity namespace is composed of two things: a type (sometimes referred to as an identity namespace) and a value. The identity type provides context as to how the field identifies a record (such as an email address). The value represents a record’s specific identity for that type (for example, jdoe@example.com for the email identity type). Common fields used as identities include account information, device IDs, and cookie IDs.

TIP

If you don’t know the identity namespace for a particular dataset, you can find it in the Experience Platform UI. In the Datasets workspace, select the dataset in question from the list. On the details page for the dataset, hover over the name of the dataset’s schema in the right rail. The identity namespace is displayed along with the schema name and description.

The Datasets dashboard with a dataset selected, and a schema dialog opened from the dataset details panel. The primary ID of the dataset is highlighted.

If you are deleting records from a single dataset, all the identities you provide must have the same type, since a dataset can only have one identity namespace. If you are deleting from all datasets, you can include multiple identity types since different datasets may have different primary identities.

There are two options to provide identities when deleting records:

Upload a JSON file
Enter primary identity values manually

Upload a JSON file

To upload a JSON file, you can drag and drop the file into the provided area, or select Choose files to browse and select from your local directory.

The request creation workflow with the choose files and drag and drop interface for uploading JSON files highlighted.

The JSON file must be formatted as an array of objects, each object representing an identity.

[
  {
    "namespaceCode": "email",
    "value": "jdoe@example.com"
  },
  {
    "namespaceCode": "email",
    "value": "san.gray@example.com"
  }
]

Property

Description

namespaceCode

The identity type.

value

The primary identity value as denoted by the type.

Once the file is uploaded, you can continue to submit the request.

Manually enter identities

To enter identities manually, select Add identity.

The request creation workflow with the Add identity option highlighted.

Controls appear that allow you to enter identities one at a time. Under identity namespace, use the dropdown menu to select the identity type. Under Primary Identity Value, provide the identity namespace value for the record.

The request creation workflow with an identity field manually added.

To add more identities, select the plus icon ( ) next to one of the rows, or select Add identity.

The request creation workflow with the plus icon and the add identity icon highlighted.

Submit the request

Once you have finished adding identities to the request, under Request settings, provide a name and optional description for the request before selecting Submit.

IMPORTANT

There are different limits for the total number of unique identity record deletes that can be submitted each month. These limits are based on your license agreement. Organizations who have purchased all editions of Adobe Real-Time Customer Data Platform or Adobe Journey Optimizer can submit up to 100,000 identity record deletes each month. Organizations who have purchased Adobe Healthcare Shield or Adobe Privacy & Security Shield can submit up to 600,000 identity record deletes each month.
A single record delete request through the UI allows you to submit 10,000 IDs at one time. The API method to delete records allows for the submission of 100,000 IDs at one time.
It is best practice to submit as many IDs per request as possible, up to your ID limit. When you intend to delete a high volume of IDs, submitting a low volume, or a single ID per record delete request should be avoided.

The request setting's Name and Description fields with Submit highlighted.

A Confirm request dialog appears to indicate that the identities cannot be recovered once deleted. Select Submit to confirm the list of identities whose data you want to delete.

The Confirm request dialog.

After the request is submitted, a work order is created and appears on the Record tab of the Data Lifecycle workspace. From here, you can monitor the work order’s status as it processes the request.

NOTE

Refer to the overview section on timelines and transparency for details on how record deletes are processed once they are executed.

The Record tab of the Data Lifecycle workspace with the new request highlighted.

Next steps

This document covered how to delete records in the Experience Platform UI. For information on how to perform other data lifecycle management tasks in the UI, refer to the Data Lifecycle UI overview.

To learn how to delete records using the Data Hygiene API, refer to the work order endpoint guide.

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