Truecaller gives out your number and contact information to anyone who bothers to search for them.
Techcrunch recently reported that, due to what the company described as a “bug,” Truecaller users in India were being signed up for Truecaller Pay without their knowledge or consent. Personally, I’ve always been leery of the app. Truecaller extracts all contacts from people who’ve signed up for it. This means you can be listed even if you’ve never used the app. When privacy and consent are being ever-more important talking points, it might finally be time to get Truecaller out of your life, once and for all. The process is easier than it might appear. Read on to find out.
How to unlist your number
Step 1. Deactivate your Truecaller account first
If you have never signup for Truecaller before, you can skip to step 2, but if you are already a Truecaller user or have used in the past, you need to go into the app and deactivate your account. Here’s how to do that:
Tap on the hamburger icon at the top left to bring up the collapsed menu
Tap on Settings
Tap on Privacy Center to enter the privacy sub-settings
Tap on Deactivate
Tap yes on the popup
Doing this will deactivate your Truecaller account. You will still need to do the following to delist your number from Truecaller’s database.
Step 2. Delist Truecaller
Visit the Truecaller unlisting page here: https://www.truecaller.com/unlisting
Enter your number in the box under “Phone number.” Make sure to include your country code
Click on the box next to “I am not a robot” to successfully complete the Recaptcha
Click on Unlist Phone number
Checking to see if your number’s been unlisted
Once you’ve done all this, Truecaller will initiate the process of removing your listing from its database. Note that this can take as long as 24 hours according to Truecaller. I tried it myself and was pleasantly surprised to find that my listing was removed from the Truecaller database after just 5 hours. There’s an easy way to check if your Truecalling listing has been removed. This is how:
Find someone else with an active Truecaller account. Have them search for your number in Truecaller search. If you’re still in the system, your number will be displayed alongside your name and other details. If you’ve succeeded in unlisting it, only the number will be displayed. This is how that will appear:
Alternately, you can try calling someone who has Truecaller installed. If your name doesn’t show up when you call, you’re all set.
My experience getting out of the Truecaller ecosystem was a lot smoother and simpler than I’d expected. While Truecaller certainly doesn’t get permission from you to list your name and number, it makes the unlisting process as simple as entering your number and solving a Captcha. Have you gotten your number unlisted from Truecaller? Let us know if you experienced any trouble while doing this.
What next? Try these Truecaller alternatives next.
