How long PO Autopilot keeps source documents

The files your buyers send are kept so you can check what an order was based on. They are not kept indefinitely.

The periods

• Source documents — the files and message text your buyers sent — are retained for up to 90 days, then removed automatically.
• Documents that never became an order are removed within 24 hours instead: one the malware scan rejected, and one whose processing failed for good. There is nothing to compare an order against, so there is no reason to hold the file for the full period.
• Privacy exports created by a customer data request are removed after 7 days.

Removal is automatic and needs no action from you.

Deleting an order yourself removes its file straight away rather than putting it on a clock.

What is not removed

The purchase order itself. The extracted values, the decisions you made, the mappings you agreed to, and the link to the Shopify draft order all remain.

So a purchase order older than 90 days still shows what was read and what it resolved to — you simply cannot open the original file any more.

Draft orders created in Shopify are Shopify’s, and are unaffected by any of this.

What this means in practice

Download anything you need to keep. If your record-keeping requires the buyer’s original document, download it from the review screen and file it in whatever system you use for that. Do not treat PO Autopilot as the archive.

Check disputes early. Comparing an order against the buyer’s original is only possible while the file is still there. A dispute raised four months later can be answered from the extracted values, but not from the document.

Deleting sooner

You can delete an order yourself, which removes its source document too. Use this when something arrived that should not have — a misdirected email, a document with information you do not want stored.