Canceling Drive Add-on

Canceling the Drive Add-on doesn't immediately strip your storage. The subscription stays active until the end of your current billing cycle — you keep using the full capacity you already paid for. After cancellation takes effect, there's a 7-day grace window where you can reactivate at the same tier without re-subscribing from scratch.

This guide walks through the cancellation flow, what happens to your files, and the timing of when capacity actually goes away.

How to cancel

In Plans (or Billing → Plans), find the Drive Add-on card. Click Cancel.

A confirmation dialog opens with a Cancellation preview showing:

• Your current size (e.g. "5 TB")
• Your end-of-cycle date (the day cancellation takes effect)
• Current usage in bytes and in number of files
• An estimate of how many files would be deleted if the cancellation takes effect and you do not buy more storage by then
• A list of the largest folders by size, so you know where to look first if you want to clean up

Read the preview carefully. The "files at risk" number is calculated from your current state — it doesn't account for files you might add or delete between now and the cycle end.

Click Confirm cancellation. The Add-on is now in canceled (pending) status. The Plans page card updates to show:

• "Canceled — ends [date]"
• Your full capacity is still available until that date
• A Reactivate button replacing the Cancel button

You're not charged anything more. The current cycle is what you've already paid for, and Stripe doesn't bill you again at the renewal date.

What happens at the end of the cycle

When your billing cycle ends, the cancellation takes effect:

• Your storage pool drops by the size of your Add-on (e.g. 5 TB removed)
• A 7-day grace window starts
• The Plans page now shows "Add-on ended — reactivate within 7 days"

If your usage was below your plan's base storage at this point, nothing visibly changes from a usage perspective. Your files stay, your email keeps flowing, your Drive keeps working — you're just down to the smaller pool.

If your usage is above your plan's base storage, you're in the over-quota state. New Drive uploads are blocked. New email may bounce. Existing files and emails stay accessible, but the system is in cleanup mode.

The 7-day grace window

For 7 days after cancellation takes effect, you can:

• Reactivate — click the Reactivate button on the Plans page. The same Add-on tier resumes, billed at today's standard rate. No re-checkout flow, no need to re-enter card details. Your full capacity is restored within a minute.
• Subscribe to a different size — if you want to come back at a smaller (or larger) tier, the standard subscribe flow works.
• Do nothing — at the end of the 7 days, the option to reactivate at the same tier disappears. You can still subscribe fresh, but you'd go through the standard onboarding.

During grace, if you're over your plan's base capacity, files are not deleted. You have the grace period to either reactivate or to clean up.

After grace, if you're still over

If 7 days pass without reactivation and your current usage is still over your plan's base capacity, the system enters cleanup mode:

• A banner shows on the dashboard with the over-quota amount
• New uploads stay blocked
• New email may continue to bounce
• After a further 30 days, files may be deleted to bring usage back under the cap

That 30-day deletion window is generous; in practice almost everyone either reactivates, deletes manually, or upgrades the mail plan within that time. Auto-deletion is a last-resort cleanup, not the default path.

If you want to avoid auto-deletion entirely, the workflow is:

1. Cancel with a clear plan to stay under your base plan capacity
2. Delete the files you don't need before cycle end
3. Empty Trash (Trash bytes still count)
4. Confirm your usage fits in your base plan
5. Let cancellation take effect

This way, when the Add-on ends, you're already in compliance and nothing changes operationally.

Reactivation at the same tier

The 7-day grace window means "you're not really gone yet." If you click Reactivate within those 7 days:

• The same Add-on tier resumes
• The current month's billing is at today's standard price (a fresh charge)
• Your full storage capacity returns
• All your files are intact (they weren't deleted during grace)
• Public download links work again

Reactivation is the same as a fresh subscription except it skips the size-picker step. If you want to come back at a different tier, use the standard subscribe flow instead.

Refunds for the cycle being canceled

The cancellation preview shows what you can expect. The default policy is:

• Mid-cycle cancellation: no refund. You keep the full capacity for the rest of the cycle you already paid for.
• Yearly subscription canceled mid-year: no automatic refund. The full year is paid for; you keep capacity until the renewal date.

If you have unusual circumstances (charged in error, billing issue, etc.), contact support — we handle these case-by-case. We don't have a default refund policy for "I changed my mind" because the deferred-cancellation pattern means you keep the storage you paid for through end-of-cycle.

Canceling a yearly subscription

Yearly subscriptions cancel the same way, just with a longer cycle. If you're on a 1-year subscription that started in March and you cancel in September, the cancellation takes effect at the next March — you keep the full capacity for the remaining 6 months.

This is by design. Yearly is a discount in exchange for committing to the year. If you want the flexibility to cancel mid-cycle and have it take effect immediately, monthly is the better fit.

What about my files and links?

During the active subscription and during the 7-day grace window, everything works normally. Files stay, share links stay valid, downloads work.

After grace, if the system has to enter cleanup mode (you stayed over the cap), files may be deleted to bring usage under the new cap. Note that:

• Files in folders shared with the account are not specially protected — they're treated like any other file by the cleanup
• Files referenced by active share links are not specially protected either
• Permanently deleted files (Trash → Delete forever) free up bytes immediately and reduce the cleanup pressure

The cleanest approach is always to bring your usage under your post-cancel cap before cancellation takes effect, not after. The system will not delete files unless it has to.

Common scenarios

"I want to cancel just for a few months." Cancel and reactivate when you need it. The 7-day grace window is short, but if you know you'll need it again in (say) February, just subscribe fresh in February. Costs are equivalent — Stripe doesn't penalize re-subscriptions.

"I'm canceling because I'm switching to yearly." The cleanest path is to wait for your monthly renewal, cancel just before, and resubscribe at yearly. Otherwise you pay a partial monthly cycle that you don't fully use.

"My company is closing the account." When the entire account is being closed (not just the Add-on), the account-level closure handles cancellation of all subscriptions automatically. You don't need to cancel the Add-on separately.

"I'm over my cap and don't want files deleted." Reactivate, or upgrade your mail plan, or buy a smaller Add-on tier — anything that brings the cap above your current usage prevents the cleanup.

"Can I export my files before cancellation?" Yes — download what you need to local storage, archive to an external service, or move them out of TrekMail entirely. There's no special "export Drive" button, but the file list and individual download links work for any export workflow.

What's next

• Drive Add-on Pricing & Plans — re-pricing if you reactivate at a different tier.
• Subscribing to the Drive Add-on — fresh subscribe if grace expired.
• Pooled Storage Quotas Explained — what your pool will be after cancellation.
• Drive FAQ & Troubleshooting — refund and edge-case questions.