"What happens to my photo after I upload it?" is one of the most reasonable questions to ask before using any AI tool, and most privacy policies answer it in language too vague to be useful. This article walks through the actual technical flow, in the order it happens in our production code, plus the one concrete retention fact we can confirm: uploads are deleted within 72 hours.
The Actual Order of Events
When you submit a face swap request, here's what happens to your files, in the exact order our server executes it:
1. Your files arrive at our server, unsaved. Your source photo/GIF/video and your face photo are received as part of the request — at this point nothing has been written to storage yet.
2. Usage limits are checked. If you're anonymous, your daily free-generation count is checked. If you're signed in, your credit balance is checked. If either check fails, the request stops here — your files are never uploaded to storage or sent anywhere else.
3. Both files are screened for unsafe content — before storage. This is a step people often assume happens later (or not at all): both your source file and your face photo are sent to an automated safety-detection service and checked before either one is written to permanent storage. If either file is flagged, the request stops immediately — nothing is stored, nothing is generated. Full detail on this step in how the NSFW filter works.
4. Only after passing the safety check, files are uploaded to storage. This is when your source and face photo are actually written to our cloud storage, so the AI generation step can access them.
5. The AI model generates your result. Your stored files are passed to the relevant face-swap model (a different model for photo, GIF, multiple-face, and video modes) to produce the output.
6. If you're signed in, a record of the generation is saved. For signed-in users, we save a task record — including the model used, the mode, and a link to the result — so you can find your generation history. Anonymous users don't get this record, since there's no account to attach it to.
7. Your uploaded files are automatically deleted from storage within 72 hours. This is a confirmed retention policy, not a marketing claim — uploaded photos, videos, and GIFs are deleted from our storage within 72 hours of upload, as stated in our privacy policy.
Why This Order Matters
The sequencing here is deliberate, and it answers a question people often have without asking it directly: can an unsafe file ever reach storage or the AI model? No — the safety check runs before storage, so a flagged file is rejected at step 3 and never proceeds to steps 4 or 5. Nothing about your file is written anywhere permanent unless it has already passed screening.
It also means the order isn't "upload, then maybe delete later if something's wrong" — it's "screen first, and only store what's needed to generate your result."
What We Can and Can't Confirm
We try to only state what we can actually verify, rather than reassuring language that sounds good but isn't backed by anything specific. Here's the distinction:
Confirmed: uploaded photos, videos, and GIFs are automatically deleted from our storage within 72 hours of upload. This is a real, enforced retention policy on our storage layer.
Confirmed: your files are processed by our AI generation, storage, and safety-detection providers, and used solely to deliver your result, enforce our policies, and prevent abuse — not for any other stated purpose.
Not something we make unverified claims about: we don't publish a claim that uploaded content is "never used for AI model training," because we don't have a written guarantee from our upstream generation provider to that effect. Rather than state something we can't verify, we simply don't make that specific claim. If that's a firm requirement for your use case, review our privacy policy directly, and contact support with any questions before uploading.
What "Deleted Within 72 Hours" Actually Covers
To be precise about scope: the confirmed 72-hour deletion applies to the raw source and face files you upload — the storage objects written in step 4 above. That's a separate thing from your generation result: for signed-in users, we save a task record pointing to the output — but that output is delivered from our AI generation provider's own storage, not re-uploaded to our servers, so we don't publish a specific retention window for how long the result link itself stays reachable. If you want to keep a result, the reliable approach is to download it after generation rather than relying on the saved link indefinitely.
What This Means for What You Upload
Given the above, some practical takeaways:
- Don't upload photos of anyone without their knowledge and consent — the 72-hour deletion window applies to storage, but it doesn't change what a face swap is being used for once generated. Our terms require you to only use photos you own or have permission to use.
- The safety screen isn't optional and isn't something you can disable — every upload goes through it, every time, with no exceptions.
- If you're a signed-in user, your generation history persists as a task record even after the underlying files are deleted from storage — the result link is saved, but the original raw uploads are not kept indefinitely.
Related Reading
Ready to try it? Use the face swap tool — photos and GIFs are free to try, no sign-up required.