Deleting a recording

Choose Delete recording now under the feedback in the lesson, or Delete recording next to the attempt in Speaking history under Practice in your account. The audio is removed straight away, with no confirmation step and no undo; your scores stay.

Delete from the lesson

1. Open the lesson's Practice tab and scroll to Speaking Beta. The Delete recording now button appears under Your recording once the feedback is complete.
2. Choose it. The line under the buttons reads "Deleting the recording…" and then "Recording deleted. Your practice scores remain in your history."
3. The player for your take disappears. Record my voice is still there if you want another go.

If you haven't sent the take yet, the same button reads Discard this take. A discarded take was never uploaded, so there's nothing on our side to delete: "This take was discarded. It was not uploaded."

Delete from Speaking history

Use this when you've left the lesson, or when the feedback never finished and the button isn't showing.

1. Open your account and choose Practice, then Speaking history.
2. Find the attempt. Each row shows the date, the accent you chose, the lesson name, the scores and a Recording expiry time in UTC.
3. Choose Delete recording. The row says "Recording deleted." and the button goes away. Rows whose audio has already been removed have no button.

What goes and what stays

Deleting removes the audio file and the transcript, the words the checker heard. It keeps the three scores (Words understood, Sound clarity and Flow), the tip and the word-by-word list, so you can still see how the try went and open the lesson from the row. If you'd like the scores gone too, ask a person: write from the contact page with "I can't sign in, or my account looks wrong" selected and say which attempts you mean, or all of them. It's the same route as Deleting your account.

If you never delete anything

You don't need to: a recording expires 24 hours after you send it and an hourly clean-up removes expired audio, so it can disappear a little after the time on the row. The scores stay in Speaking history. The full retention statement is in the privacy policy's section on your voice: Your voice and speaking feedback.

If the deletion fails

If the lesson says "The recording could not be deleted. It is still available here; try Delete recording now again.", the file is still with us. Choose the button once more; a short pause between tries helps. In Speaking history the same failure shows "The request did not finish. Your answer is still here. Try again." and the button comes back so you can retry.

If it still won't delete after a couple of tries, don't assume it's gone. Write to us with the lesson name and the date on the row and a person will remove it for you: Contact us about a recording.