Removing a connection or leaving Scout
You can stop Scout reading a source at any time, and you can leave altogether. This article explains the five things you can do to a connection, what each one does to the data Scout already holds, and what happens when a workspace closes.
The five actions on a connection
| Action | What it does | Reversible? |
|---|---|---|
| Pause | Scout stops reading this source. Its configuration and any partly finished reading are kept, so nothing has to start over. | Yes — choose Resume. |
| Resume | Scout picks up where it stopped rather than re-reading from the beginning. | — |
| Reconnect | Re-authorizes an existing connection, usually because a grant expired. Scout re-enters the provider's consent screen aimed at that exact account, and refuses the result if a different mailbox or company comes back — a reconnect can never quietly swap what Scout is reading. | — |
| Revoke | Withdraws Scout's access. Scout destroys its stored authorization and, where the provider offers a revocation call, tells the provider to invalidate it too. | Only by connecting again from scratch. |
| Retire | Ends the connection permanently. Scout will not read from it again, and cannot accept a late response that was already in flight. Any claim this source held over an email address is released, so another source can become the authority for it. | No. |
All five are Owner and Admin actions, and each one is recorded. See The connection detail page for where the controls live.
How to remove a connection
- Open Connections and choose the source you want to remove.
- If you only want Scout to stop for now — a mailbox owner on leave, a supplier feed making noise — choose Pause. This is the right choice far more often than people expect.
- To withdraw access, choose Revoke. Scout destroys its copy of the authorization immediately.
- To close the connection for good, choose Retire.
One provider-specific note: Microsoft does not offer Scout a revocation call. Revoking a Microsoft connection destroys Scout's stored authorization and records that it did; if you also want the application's consent removed on Microsoft's side, your Microsoft administrator does that in their own admin center.
What stays, and what goes
Goes: Scout's ability to read that source, and its stored authorization. No further messages, invoices, or supplier records are read.
Stays: the work you already did. Points Scout already raised keep their evidence excerpts. Closed items keep their receipts, including who closed them and why. Found keeps its receipts, so your ledger does not rewrite itself because a connection went away. Notes people wrote stay attached to the items they were written on.
That asymmetry is deliberate. Receipts are the record of decisions your shop made, and Scout treats them as permanent rather than as a by-product of a connection. Removing a source stops the flow of new information; it is not a way to erase history.
Leaving Scout
Cancelling the plan
Billing is monthly and managed by the Owner from Settings → Workspace → Plan & billing. Cancelling takes effect at the end of the billing period you have already paid for — Scout does not cut you off mid-month. See Plan and billing.
Closing the workspace
Deleting the workspace is the one action that removes its history, and only the Owner can do it. It lives at the bottom of Settings → Workspace → General, under Delete this workspace. It cannot be undone, so take the export first if you want one.
Getting your data out
Scout will provide an export of your workspace's data on request, in a common machine-readable format. There is a window after a workspace ends during which you can ask for it; after that window Scout deletes production data and then works through backups. The exact periods are stated in the Terms of Service, which is the authoritative version rather than this page.
Privacy requests
Requests about personal data — access, correction, deletion — are handled through the contact address named in the Privacy Policy. If you are an employee rather than the workspace Owner, start with your Owner: your workspace's data belongs to your company, and Scout will not act on an employee's request to remove company records.
Good to know
- Deactivating a person is not the same as removing a connection. Deactivating closes their access; a personal mailbox they connected is handled separately. See Changing roles, deactivating, reactivating.
- Pausing a source does not pause the Watches that depend on it. Those Watches simply have less to read, and Scout's coverage figure in the morning brief will drop to say so.
- Revoking a connection does not delete the items it produced, and re-connecting later does not duplicate them.
- If a source is removed while it was the authority for an address, the next connected source that sees that address can take over as the authority, so you do not end up with two items for one conversation.