Account Settings and Security

This guide walks you through the Settings page: your profile, login credentials, privacy controls, data retention, and how to delete your account.

If your email is not yet verified, a warning banner appears at the top of the Settings page — "Your email is not verified. Please verify your email to access all features." — with a Verify Email button that takes you to the verification page, where you can resend the verification email.

Settings Page Overview

The Settings page is organized into tabs (a dropdown navigation on mobile):

• Personal Info — name, contact details, and address used on your generated documents
• Account — login email, password, AI consent, and account deletion
• Preferences — theme, language, generation defaults, data retention, bulk download formats, and privacy controls
• Notifications — email and in-app notification preferences
• Templates — custom Word template upload and management (Premium)
• Cloud Drives — Google Drive and OneDrive sync (Premium)

Billing is not a Settings tab. Plan changes, invoices, and cancellation live on the dedicated Billing page and behind the Manage Billing action on the Dashboard.

How saving works

The Personal Info, Preferences, Notifications, and Cloud Drives tabs use a save bar: as soon as you change something, a bar appears with "You have unsaved changes" and Save / Discard Changes buttons. If you try to switch tabs or leave the page with unsaved changes, an Unsaved Changes dialog asks you to Discard Changes or Stay.

Personal Info

The Personal Info tab holds the details printed on your generated documents:

• First Name and Last Name
• Email — this is your contact email, shown on generated documents. It is not your login email; the field's hint says exactly that.
• Phone Number
• Street Address, City, Postal Code, Country

Required fields are marked with an asterisk (*) and must be filled in before you can generate job applications. To change the email you sign in with, use Change Login Email on the Account tab instead.

Account

The Account tab (titled Account & Security) contains several cards.

Authentication Method

Shows whether your account uses Email & Password or Google Authentication, along with the email you sign in with. Google-authenticated accounts manage their password and login email through Google, so the cards below don't apply to them.

Changing Your Login Email

Email/password accounts see a Change Login Email card:

1. Enter the new address in the New email address field
2. Click Send Verification to New Email
3. A confirmation appears: "We've sent a verification link to [new address]. Click the link in that email to complete the change." Your current email stays active until you verify the new one.
4. Open the link from the new address's inbox — you'll see "Email Changed Successfully!" and the change takes effect

Two things to know:

• You'll need to sign in again. For security, sessions signed in with the old email are signed out once the change completes. Sign back in with your new address.
• Your old address automatically receives a notification with a recovery option, in case the change wasn't you.

The info note in the card reminds you that this only changes your login email — the contact email on your documents is edited separately in the Personal Info tab.

Changing Your Password

In the Security Settings card, click Change Password. A dialog explains: "For security reasons, we'll send you a password reset email instead of changing it directly here."

1. The dialog shows which address the link goes to (your current login email)
2. Click Send Reset Email
3. You'll see "Password reset email sent. Check your inbox."
4. Follow the link and set a new password (minimum 6 characters)

Google-authenticated users don't see this button; the card notes that password change is managed by Google.

Data & AI Consent

preparAItor requires your consent to AI processing — it's what powers CV extraction, job analysis, and document generation. The Data & AI Consent card shows the status chip "AI Processing Consent: Active" and a Withdraw AI Consent button.

Withdrawing consent opens a dialog titled Withdraw AI Processing Consent that explains the consequence: without AI processing the service cannot function for you, so your account and all associated data will be permanently deleted. Choose Keep my consent to back out, or I understand — delete my account to proceed to the account deletion confirmation described below.

If you only want to limit what the AI sees rather than withdraw entirely, use the AI data sharing controls in the Preferences tab instead.

Preferences

The Preferences tab is grouped into four sections.

Appearance & Localization

• Theme — Light, Dark, or Auto (follows your system's dark/light mode)
• Timezone
• Interface Language — English, German, French, or Italian; applies to all menus, buttons, notifications, and emails

Document Generation

• Default Output Language — the language for generated documents (available options depend on your plan)
• Default Tone — Formal, Confident, Friendly, Enthusiastic, or Direct (tones beyond Formal require a plan with custom tones)
• Swiss orthography (no ß) — replaces ß with ss in German-language documents
• Data Retention Period — how long generated documents are stored before automatic deletion: 1 day, 7 days, or 30 days (default 30). After this period, files can no longer be downloaded.
• Interview Session Retention — how long interview practice sessions are kept: 30 days, 90 days, or 180 days (default 90). You can export any session as a PDF from the interview page before it expires.

If you need application records for longer than 30 days, save them to the Application Tracker — tracker entries are kept for 365 days.

Bulk Download / ZIP File

Choose which formats (PDF, editable Word, plain text) to include per document type — Motivational Letter, Application Email, Interview Q&A, Job Summary, Job Posting — when you download all files of a generation as one ZIP. Available on plans that include bulk download; at least one format must stay selected.

Privacy

• AI data sharing — per-field toggles controlling which CV details are sent to the AI when generating documents, running interview practice, or using AI Assist. Your saved CV is unaffected; the toggles only filter what reaches the AI. Fields are grouped from "Highly recommended ON" (work experience, skills, summary — turning these off sharply degrades output quality) down to "Recommended OFF" (precise address, date of birth). Some rows are locked as Always removed: references, testimonial author names, personal URLs, and your CV's privacy statement are never sent to AI regardless of settings.
• Show cookie notice — reopens the cookie banner. preparAItor only uses strictly necessary cookies and local storage (sign-in, payments, bot protection, theme/language) — no analytics, no ads, no tracking — so there are no cookie categories to toggle.

Notifications

The Notifications tab has master toggles for Email Notifications and In-App Notifications, each with three category switches: Transactional Updates, Account Reminders, and Marketing & Updates. Critical notifications (password changes, payment receipts, data-deletion warnings) are always sent regardless of these settings. See the Notification Preferences guide for details.

Deleting Your Account

Account deletion is permanent and immediate — there is no grace period and no recovery window. Export or download anything you want to keep first.

1. Go to Settings → Account
2. In the Account Management card, click Delete Account
3. A dialog titled Are you sure? lists what happens: all your data will be permanently deleted, you won't be able to use preparAItor, and you can always create a new account later
4. Type the confirmation word shown in the dialog — it matches your interface language: DELETE (English), LÖSCHEN (German), SUPPRIMER (French), ELIMINA (Italian)
5. Click Yes, Delete My Account (or Go Back to cancel)

You'll see "Account and all data have been permanently deleted. You will be logged out."

What gets deleted:

• Your account, profile, and settings
• Uploaded CVs and saved jobs
• All generated documents and history
• Application Tracker entries
• Interview sessions and summaries
• Custom templates and cloud drive connections
• Any active subscription is cancelled as part of the same flow

What is not affected or retained:

• Documents already synced to your own Google Drive or OneDrive stay in your drive — disconnecting never deletes synced files. Revoke the app's access from your Google or Microsoft account settings if you also want to sever the authorization.
• Billing and invoice records are retained by the payment provider for the period required by tax and accounting law.
• A minimal record of the deletion itself is kept temporarily for anti-abuse and compliance purposes.

What Is Not Available

To set expectations, the following are not currently offered in the app:

• Two-factor authentication (2FA)
• Self-service export of your full account data (interview sessions can be exported as PDFs, and generated documents can be downloaded individually or as ZIPs; for a full data request, email admin@preparaitor.ch)
• Login history or active-session management

Getting Help

For account, billing, or privacy questions, email admin@preparaitor.ch.

Next Steps

• Notification Preferences — Configure your email and in-app notifications
• Custom Templates — Upload your own Word templates
• Cloud Storage Setup — Sync documents to Google Drive or OneDrive