How to Remove Phone Number from TrueCaller, but does it even work?

Truecaller, an app which is used by millions and millions of users across the globe does a simple job of identifying who the caller is if you don’t have the number saved. The application works flawlessly for the most part since the concept is very simple. You just create an account and allow the app to access your contact lists. Once you do that, all your contacts are sent to the True caller database. And when millions of people do the same thing, you have a database with billions of phone numbers. So, it pretty much crowdsources contacts from the users.

On the other hand, even if you have never used this app before, the chances are, your contact details are still there in the app as there might be someone else who had your contact details and he/she is using this app. While the app is flawless at what it does, there are a lot of downsides to it, when it comes to privacy. Obviously, most people won’t appreciate the fact that some random person can get hold on your contact details just by doing a simple search. And in few cases like a fixed-line number, even the address of that particular fixed line is present.

Considering all the above factors, it is safe to say that you should consider taking your contact details down from the Truecaller website. Most people don’t know this, but it is indeed possible, or at least that’s what the true caller website says. There is an option to unlist your number from the Truecaller website which should essentially remove your details from the database. If in case, you are wondering how to do it, then you can follow the steps given below –

Prerequisite

The one and only prerequisite for this is deactivating your Truecaller account. You cannot remove your number from the database if you are still using the Truecaller app and hence before you start the procedure, make sure you are deactivating your account.

Android

1. If you are an Android user, then simply go to the App and tap the people icon in the upper left corner.
2. Now go to settings and select Deactivate account from the About option.

iOS

1. Open the app and tap on the gear icon on the top-right corner of the screen.
2. Within the about settings, scroll down to find the Deactivate account option.

Now that you are done deactivating your account, you are ready to proceed to the removal of your number.

Removing your number from Truecaller

1. The first step is to go to the Truecaller Unlist page in their website.
2. Now enter your number along with the country code and tick one of the reasons to proceed.
3. Once you are verify that you are not a robot, click on unlist.

If you followed all the steps above, according to the company, your number should be unlisted from the website within 24 hours. But wait, there’s more to it. After your successful removal, you may not find your number on the website once you search. But according to a lot of users, it looks like the unlist option doesn’t work. But why so? According to the Reddit community, some users are facing this issue, and even after unlisting the number, their numbers keep popping up on the search result for some reason, which makes us believe that the unlist option don’t work.

So how does it work? Well, there’s no said answer to this question as of now. For most people, this seems to work just fine. However, others are claiming that their number started to show up again after a few days. It looks like the database is still showing up your particular number from the data it collected from someone else’s account. While it worked for many users, we are curious to know if this worked out for you. Hence be sure to let us know in the comment section with your experience. Stay tuned to PhoneRadar for more info on this.

Update: Response from TrueCaller:
If your number is still searchable on Truecaller after you opted out can be of different reasons:

1. If you are a Truecaller user you need to deactivate your account from the app.
2. It may take up to 24 hours before it’s removed due to caching processes.
3. The profile could be locally cached (saved) in your device so you need to empty your search results on that device and try again. Alternatively is to clear the cache memory of the device via the “phone settings > apps> Truecaller” on your Android device.”

Do note that after unlisting a number from Truecaller and following the steps mentioned above, the number is removed from the database and not searchable anymore.