Deactivate versus delete

Deactivate: everything stays

Deactivating SadAnalytics keeps every table, every option and every person's own preferences exactly as they were. All it does is cancel any sync in progress, clear SadAnalytics' five scheduled cron jobs (the regular sync, the monthly full sync, the digest, the digest retry and the sync tick), and clear its short-lived cache entries.

On the Plugins screen, clicking Deactivate may first open a short, optional form asking why. It comes from the Freemius code bundled with SadAnalytics. On a site that opted in to Freemius, Freemius is told the plugin was deactivated.

Reactivating opens the SadAnalytics dashboard again. The setup wizard only comes back if a step is still unfinished. Reactivating does not reset your settings, your referral-source list or who is allowed to see SadAnalytics.

Delete: off by default

Deleting SadAnalytics from the Plugins screen is not the same as wiping its data. By default, deleting the plugin keeps every table and every setting, exactly like deactivating: WordPress removes the plugin's files, and SadAnalytics leaves your data where it is.

What gets removed when you opt in

With that toggle on, deleting the plugin permanently:

• Drops all of SadAnalytics' tables.
• Deletes every SadAnalytics option by name, including your settings, the referral-source list, the exempted-accounts list and who is allowed to see SadAnalytics.
• Deletes SadAnalytics' short-lived cache entries and its per-user preferences (remembered date range, dismissed notices and the rest).
• Cancels any of SadAnalytics' own scheduled background jobs.

None of this touches your WordPress users. SadAnalytics only records which of your existing users it had matched to a customer, in the tables that are dropped. The options the bundled Freemius code keeps (named with an fs_ prefix) are not SadAnalytics' and are left in place.