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What happens to my scans if I delete the app?

Delete HouseSense and the local copy on your phone is gone, but the homes in your own private iCloud remain — reinstall the app with the same Apple ID and they come back.

The three places a scan can live

To answer precisely what disappears, it helps to separate three layers. A home you have scanned with HouseSense can live:

1. Locally on the device, in the app's own area. This is the working copy the app reads from whenever you open a home.
2. In your private iCloud, under your own Apple ID. This is the copy that lets the same home open on your iPad too.
3. As an exported file — a PDF of the floor plan, a takeoff report, a 3D model — that you have saved in Files yourself, sent by email, or put in Dropbox.

Deleting the app only touches the first layer. Layers two and three are left untouched.

Deleting the app and installing it again

If you install HouseSense again, on the same device or a new one, and you are signed in with the same Apple ID, the app pulls the homes back down from your private iCloud. Floor plans, room geometry, areas and budget figures all come with it, because those are exactly what gets synced.

Two kinds of homes do not come back, because they were never synced in the first place:

• The example home that ships with the app as demo data. It is simply generated again on first launch — there is nothing to lose.
• Homes you imported with a share code from a seller. Those live only locally on your device and are gone once the app is deleted. If you still have the code and it has not expired, you can import the home again.

How to remove a home for good

If you want to get rid of a home for real — not just remove the app from your home screen — the order matters. Delete the home inside HouseSense while the app is still installed. That removes both the local copy and the record in your private iCloud in one go, including its rooms and any extra data attached to it.

If you have already deleted the app and change your mind, you can instead go into iOS Settings, under your Apple ID and iCloud, and remove HouseSense's data from there. That clears the app's area in your private database. Note that this is an all-or-nothing action: it hits every home, not one you pick.

And here is something many people overlook: an active share code survives you deleting the app. The shared copy does not live in your private iCloud — it lives in the area a buyer can read from. If you delete the app without revoking the code first, the buyer can still see the home until the 30 days run out. To shut it down, revoke the code inside the app before you delete the app.

Switching phones: the easy case

Move from one iPhone to another and there is nothing to do. Sign in with the same Apple ID, install HouseSense, and the homes come down from your private iCloud on their own. There is no account to recreate and no password to remember, because HouseSense doesn't have one.

Switch to Android, on the other hand, and there is no path across. HouseSense exists only for iPhone and iPad, and iCloud does not come with you. This is exactly where the third layer earns its keep — see the next section.

The one copy that survives everything

An exported file is the only form of home data that depends on neither the app, your Apple ID, nor the maker. HouseSense can write the floor plan out as a PDF, the takeoff for contractor quotes as a PDF, and the model out into ordinary 3D and drawing formats that other programs can read. Put them in Files, on a NAS, or in a folder on your computer, and they are entirely yours.

This is good advice regardless of app: once a takeoff is finished and needs to be used for something binding — a quote, a sale listing, an application — export it as a PDF and keep it yourself. That way, the drawing you showed the contractor in May is still the same drawing in November, whatever has happened to the phone in between.

What HouseSense cannot do for you

Because HouseSense has neither a user account nor its own server, there is no backup held by the maker. There is no 30-day recycle bin on our end, and no support desk that can dig up a deleted home. Delete a home inside the app without having exported anything, and that scan is gone.

That is the honest flip side of nobody else being able to see your data: nobody else has a copy either. Turn on iCloud backup on the device, and export whatever you don't want to lose. That is the whole safety net.

Short summary

Deleting HouseSense removes the local copy but not the homes in your private iCloud — they come back on reinstall with the same Apple ID. To remove a home for good, delete it inside the app first. Revoke active share codes before you delete the app. And export the drawings and reports you want to keep independent of all of it.