History and retention

This page is for the administrator. It explains what History does before you switch it on, what the server keeps, for how long, and what deletes it.

What History is

The platforms drop some figures. Instagram removes a story's figures 24 hours after it was posted. A Facebook Page's and an Instagram account's daily figures go back only so far. No platform keeps who an account's followers were on a past date.

With History on, the server reads those figures by itself, on a timer, for the accounts that each person asked it to watch, and keeps them. People can then ask their AI client for a past month, or for one month beside the month before. See Insights.

History is off in a new installation.

Before you switch it on

Three things change when History is on. Decide on each first.

• The server calls the platforms with nobody asking at that moment. Each watched account is read on its owner's own connection, and those calls count against that person's use of the platform. See What it costs in calls.
• The server stores what it reads. It stores counts only, but it stores them. Your own privacy policy has to say so before you switch it on. The Marketing MCP privacy page says what the software keeps.
• Nothing is read until a person asks, account by account. Switching History on reads nothing by itself. It only lets people add accounts to their own watch list.

The server only reads and stores for History. It never posts and never changes anything on a platform.

Switch History on

1. Open Server.
2. Under History, tick Let the server watch accounts by itself.
3. Set Keep figures for (days). It starts at 800. Empty keeps figures for good.
4. Set Accounts one person may watch. It starts at 20. Empty means no limit.
5. Press Save history settings.

It takes effect at once, without a restart. The heading shows On or Off.

To switch it off, untick the box and save. Then nothing is read on a timer for anyone. What was already kept stays until its time runs out, and people can still read it.

How people watch an account

Each person adds accounts for themselves, on their own History page or through their AI client:

1. Open History.
2. Under Watch an account, choose What to keep.
3. Type the account's id. Show my accounts lists the accounts that your connection reaches, and Use fills the id in.
4. Press Watch this account and confirm.

Or ask the AI client:

Start keeping the stories of our Instagram account.

Keep the daily figures of our LinkedIn Page from now on.

The AI client shows what would be kept and what it costs in calls first, and starts watching only after the person confirms. See How it keeps you safe.

What holds for a watch:

• The person needs a connection that can read that account's figures. They do not need write access, because nothing on a platform changes. So watching also works for a read-only user and in read-only mode.
• Starting and stopping a watch is recorded in the activity log.
• Two people who watch the same account are two watches. Each is read on its owner's connection and kept for its owner only.
• When a person has reached Accounts one person may watch, another watch is refused until they stop one.
• Stop watching works even when History is off. A person can always take their own account off the list.

While History is off, the History page shows Switched off and adding a watch is refused with the reason and the address of the Server page.

What is kept

There are four things to keep. The names are the choices under What to keep.

What to keep	What is stored	How far back at the start
Instagram stories	Each story's figures (views, reach, replies, shares, follows, profile visits, link clicks, interactions, navigation), its id, its time and its link.	Nothing. Stories are kept from the moment the account is watched.
Facebook Page, daily figures	One number a day for each figure: followers, follows and unfollows, views, the people who saw its content, Page visits, engagements, video views, actions and reactions. Once a week, its followers by country and by city.	90 days.
Instagram account, daily figures	One number a day for each figure: followers and media as they stood, reach, views, accounts engaged, interactions, likes, comments, saves, shares, replies, reposts, link taps, follows and unfollows. Once a week, its followers by age, gender, country and city.	30 days.
LinkedIn Page, daily figures	One number a day for each figure: followers, followers gained, page views, and the posts' impressions, clicks, reactions, comments, shares and engagement. Once a week, its followers by function, seniority, industry, company size, country, region and association.	12 months.

For the three daily kinds, the server first reads back what the platform still has, and then keeps each day once it has ended. A Facebook Page and a LinkedIn Page are read back in one go. An Instagram account is read back seven days an hour, so its 30 days take a few hours.

What is never kept

• No caption and no text of a post or a story.
• No viewer, no follower and nobody's name or handle.
• Nobody's reply, comment or message.
• For LinkedIn, no name behind a figure. A breakdown is stored as LinkedIn's own identifier and a count. The name is looked up when a report is read, for that answer only.

When the server reads

What	When
Stories	Every 30 minutes. A story is read when it is first seen, and on every look in its last 4 hours. The last reading before it expires is the one that is kept.
Daily figures	Once a day for each account, after the day has ended. Days are UTC days, and a day is read from 03:00 UTC on.
Who the followers are	Once a week.

All of it happens only while the server is running.

What it costs in calls

Each watch makes calls on its owner's connection. The History page shows these numbers under Watch an account for the kind that is chosen, and the AI client shows them before a person confirms.

What to keep	Calls
Instagram stories	About 48 calls a day to Meta to list the live stories, and up to 18 for each story.
Facebook Page, daily figures	1 call to Meta a day, 2 more once a week, and 1 when the account is first watched.
Instagram account, daily figures	3 calls to Meta a day, 4 more once a week, and 2 for each of the 30 days read back at the start.
LinkedIn Page, daily figures	4 calls to LinkedIn a day, 1 more once a week, and the same 4 when the account is first watched.

Accounts one person may watch is what bounds this for each person.

Missing days

The server keeps a day only if it read it. It never fills a day in.

• Each daily read also reads the 7 days before it again. So if the server was off for a few days, those days are read when it comes back, and a figure that the platform corrected late is taken in.
• A day that the server was off for more than a week is missing for good.
• A story that was posted and expired while the server was off, or could not read the account, was never seen. A report on stories says which periods were not read.
• A missing day is shown as missing. It is left out of every series and total, and is never counted as zero.

On the History page, Days held shows the first and the last day kept for an account and how many days between them are missing.

How long figures are kept

Keep figures for (days) on the Server page decides it.

• Once a day the server deletes the stories, daily figures and unread periods that are older than that many days.
• It does this whether History is on or off. So switching History off does not keep old figures for good.
• With the field empty, nothing is deleted by age.

LinkedIn's figures are kept one year at most

LinkedIn's terms allow its figures to be stored for one year. So each day of a LinkedIn Page is deleted 365 days later, whatever Keep figures for (days) says, and whether History is on or off. It is not a setting.

For the same reason, a LinkedIn Page cannot be compared with the same period a year before.

Kept reports follow the same setting

A scheduled report that is kept as a file is deleted when it is older than Keep figures for (days). A kept report that holds LinkedIn figures is deleted 365 days after the oldest day in it, whatever the setting says. See Scheduled reports.

WARNING

A shorter number deletes at the next daily clean-up everything that is older than it. That cannot be undone: most of those figures are no longer at the platform.

What deletes what was kept

What happens	What is deleted
A figure grows older than Keep figures for (days)	That figure.
A LinkedIn day grows older than 365 days	That day.
A person disconnects Meta	Their Meta watches and everything kept from them, stories included.
A person disconnects LinkedIn	Their LinkedIn watches and everything kept from them.
An administrator deletes a user	All of that user's watches and everything kept for them.

And what does not delete:

• Stop watching stops the reading. What was already kept stays until its time runs out.
• Switching History off stops the reading for everyone. What was kept stays until its time runs out.
• Disabling a user stops the reading for them and deletes nothing.

When a reading stops

The server stops reading an account when it can no longer do so as its owner: the user is disabled, the connection has ended or was removed, a permission is gone, or the platform refuses.

• The owner gets one notification when it stops, not one on every try. See Notifications.
• On the owner's History page the account shows Stopped and the reason.
• Nothing is read until the cause is put right. Then the reading starts again by itself.
• What was not read in the meantime is read later only where the platform still has it: see Missing days.

A network fault or a platform that is busy is not a stop. The server tries again at the next look and tells nobody. The reason is shown under the account until a read works.

Check that it works

Open History. Above the list, one line says when the last look at stories and at daily figures was, whether it failed, and how long figures are kept. For each account, Last read shows the last read that worked, and Days held what is kept.

A person can ask their AI client the same:

What accounts is the server watching for me, and when was each last read?

Other things that are kept for a time

History is not the only thing with a time limit. These have their own:

What	How long	Where it is set
Files in the media library	30 days after a file was last uploaded or posted, in a new installation.	Safety limits, Keep uploaded media, days. See Media.
Notifications	An unread one is kept. A read one is deleted 90 days after it was written.	Not a setting. See Notifications.

Settings lists the History settings with their environment variables.