Does Apple keep my data in the cloud if my subscription runs out

[felixkunze]

My MobileMe subscription is about to run out on the 7th of August. Due to a bit of a mess trying to get MobileMe at the discounted price (having bought the iPhone at O2 and using that to get a cheap mobileme subscription and the fact that I live almost an hour from my closest Apple Store), I am receiving my subscription update by mail.

I mainly use the Web Galleries on .mac and now MobileMe. If my subscription update arrives in the mail on the 8th, I will have gone 24 hours with an inactive MobileMe account. Will Apple simply get rid of my web galleries? Or will everything just turn up again when I reconnect my account?

I tried getting them to give me the subscription code over the phone but apparently they don't do this. And don't bother asking me about the 30 day extension. Apple somehow seems to have no control over when these get updated. But that's another thread.

Does anyone know what actually happens to the data once the subscription runs out?

 

[Mal]

I wouldn't expect it to stay, but it might be available for a short while. When I let mine lapse, it was a good bit longer than that but it was all back to as it was when I originally got it when I finally reactivated (that's been a while though).

jW

 

[Daveoc64]

Apple's official policy is that they will delete ALL of your data when your subscription expires:

Calendars
Contacts
Mail
iDisk contents (which includes your Gallery/Homepage/iWeb content)

Really they should offer a grace period so that if something goes wrong you don't lose ~20GB of data.

 

[dasikes]

Really they should offer a grace period so that if something goes wrong you don't lose ~20GB of data.

True, but that's part of their incentive to have automatic billing and stay with them

 

[VideoFreek]

Apple's official policy is that they will delete ALL of your data when your subscription expires:

Calendars
Contacts
Mail
iDisk contents (which includes your Gallery/Homepage/iWeb content)

Really they should offer a grace period so that if something goes wrong you don't lose ~20GB of data.

Where'd you get this info? According to their support page you can re-activate an expired account up to 45 days after expiration.

 

[alphaod]

They purge your stuff; you can renew still, but you lose everything.

 

[VideoFreek]

They purge your stuff; you can renew still, but you lose everything.

That's lovely. I'm up for renewal on Aug 11, and I'm still getting the "there is a problem with your credit card" message. I just spend about 20 minutes with a support person via chat, and she assured me that they've received my request to renew and everything will be fine. I'm not convinced, but I'll just have to cross my fingers til then.

You'd think with their broke-ass billing system still not working right, they'd ease up on purging expired accounts until they get it fixed.

 

[Daveoc64]

That's lovely. I'm up for renewal on Aug 11, and I'm still getting the "there is a problem with your credit card" message. I just spend about 20 minutes with a support person via chat, and she assured me that they've received my request to renew and everything will be fine. I'm not convinced, but I'll just have to cross my fingers til then.

You'd think with their broke-ass billing system still not working right, they'd ease up on purging expired accounts until they get it fixed.

Precisely the reason it should be changed.

If there's a bug with MobileMe, your credit card gets declined (for reasons beyond your control) or just something weird happens then you're screwed under the current system.

All they'd need to do is lock people out of their accounts, but to retain data for a limited period (say 45 days). After that, if the user doesn't reclaim the account then the data could be deleted.

If anything went wrong with my renewal and they deleted my data, they would lose me as a customer.

 

[felixkunze]

If anything went wrong with my renewal and they deleted my data, they would lose me as a customer.

Same is true for me.

 

[felixkunze]

Where'd you get this info? According to their support page you can re-activate an expired account up to 45 days after expiration.

VideoFreek - Would you mind posting a link/screenshot or even quoting exactly what the support document you looked at says? It seems this is not just my issue and any re-assurances from Apple would be fantastic.

 

[VideoFreek]

On the support page, click on "Account & Billing" and then "Renew & Reactivate".

 

[felixkunze]

On the support page, click on "Account & Billing" and then "Renew & Reactivate".

Cheers, now I can sleep soundly.

 

[wolfie]

so if they delete all your data, does this mean it syncs with iphone and address book and wipes it out too?

 

[VideoFreek]

I wouldn't worry about that. Once the account is shut off...it won't sync.