LINE Official Account Chats Hidden After Six Months Unless Users Pay for Longer Access

183 days of access, or up to five years with a subscription

LINE Official Account users in Taiwan can view only the most recent 183 days of customer conversations without a Chat Advanced Plan subscription, according to the company's business service guidance. Paying extends access to as much as 1,830 days, with eligible records reaching back no earlier than January 1, 2024.

The limit drew attention after a business account user posted a system notification on Threads on November 10, 2026. The user relied on LINE to communicate with customers and was worried about losing access to important exchanges and details about customer preferences. The post attracted about 21,000 likes.

The restriction applies to LINE Official Accounts, which businesses and other organisations use to communicate with customers or followers. Ordinary personal LINE accounts are outside this six month display rule.

LINE's guidance also contains a detail that matters as much as the headline limit: paying for longer access does not give every type of conversation the same protection. A private customer conversation can retain pictures and files for five years under the advanced plan, while attachments in group chats have much shorter periods.

Businesses therefore face three practical questions: how long they can open a conversation, how long its attachments remain available, and whether they can make a backup. LINE sets different rules for each. Understanding those differences is especially useful for anyone who uses old messages to check an order, confirm an instruction or remember what a customer requested.

What the free service keeps available

LINE's standard chat guidance says Official Accounts without the Chat Advanced Plan can view conversations from the previous six months, defined as 183 days. These accounts cannot use the chat history backup function.

For conversations between an Official Account and one customer, that period covers text, pictures, audio, videos and files. A business checking an older exchange can therefore lose access to both the written discussion and the material sent alongside it.

Group conversations follow a different schedule. Their text remains available for six months, but pictures, audio and videos have a retention period of two weeks. Files have a retention period of one week.

A customer group that exchanges a document and discusses it in messages can therefore have two different timelines within the same conversation. The written discussion may remain accessible for months after the document's retention period has ended.

For staff handling customer enquiries, the age and format of the information both matter. Searching for an old message and opening the attachment mentioned in that message are separate tasks, governed by separate limits.

What the advanced plan changes

LINE's advanced plan guidance says subscribers can view and back up eligible chat history from January 1, 2024, within a maximum period of five years, defined as 1,830 days.

In conversations with individual customers, the extended period covers text, pictures, audio, videos and files. That gives a business a much longer window for opening both the conversation and the material exchanged within it.

Using LINE's stated day counts, 1,830 days is ten times the standard 183 days. The January 2024 starting point still limits how far back access can reach: the subscription's five year ceiling operates alongside that earliest eligible date.

The extension is narrower in group chats. Text is retained for five years, but pictures, audio and videos remain subject to the two week period, while files remain subject to the one week period. Businesses whose customer work happens mainly in groups therefore receive a different benefit from those relying mainly on individual conversations.

The practical difference can be substantial. An older picture sent by an individual customer falls within the advanced plan's five year retention rules. A picture sent in a group chat follows the much shorter group attachment schedule.

Viewing history and backing it up are different

LINE limits the Official Account backup function to text messages, including for subscribers. Pictures, audio, videos and files are excluded from that backup function even when the advanced plan retains them for viewing.

A backup is a saved copy of information that can be kept for later use. Viewing history means opening records through the service. A business can have permission to view an old attachment without having that attachment included in its chat backup.

For an order discussed through text and an attached design file, the written conversation and the design therefore need separate attention. The advanced plan can extend access to both in an individual chat, but its backup function copies only the text.

The main combinations are:

• Without the advanced plan, individual conversations retain text and attachments for six months, with no chat history backup function.
• With the advanced plan, individual conversations retain text and attachments for up to five years, while backups contain text only.
• In group chats, the plan extends text retention from six months to five years, while pictures, audio and videos retain their two week limit and files their one week limit.

For businesses choosing whether to subscribe, the useful comparison is therefore between the records they actually need and the specific benefit the plan provides. A longer text archive and a lasting copy of every attachment are different needs.

What happens to hidden conversations

Older conversations hidden by the six month limit can become visible again after an Official Account subscribes to the advanced plan, subject to the eligible history window beginning on January 1, 2024. That offers a way to regain access to customer exchanges that have moved beyond the standard viewing period.

If the subscription ends, LINE does not actively delete the existing records simply because the user has stopped paying. Conversations older than six months become hidden again.

For a business, that makes continued access a recurring subscription decision. An old customer instruction may be accessible while the advanced plan is active and become unavailable through the standard interface after the account returns to the free service.

The cancellation arrangement sits alongside the retention rules for each type of content. Group attachments, in particular, continue to have their shorter schedules under both plans.

No implementation date for the six month restriction or price for the Official Account Chat Advanced Plan was given in the information accompanying the discussion. The November notification brought attention to the rule, while some users responding to the post said the arrangement had already existed for some time.

How the dispute reached customers

The November 10 post focused on a concrete business problem: customer information that had previously been easy to find could move outside the account's viewing window. The user's concern was remembering preferences and retrieving important exchanges, rather than simply keeping a long archive.

Other users complained about useful functions requiring payment and about the storage space occupied by the LINE app. Some initially feared that conversations with friends and family would also become subject to the six month rule. Replies pointed out that the notification concerned Official Accounts.

The key dates behind the discussion are:

• January 1, 2024: The earliest eligible date for chat history accessible under the advanced plan.
• November 10, 2026: An Official Account user posted the notification on Threads and objected to the limits on accessing customer conversations.
• November 11, 2026: Wider public attention focused on the six month limit, the paid extension and whether personal accounts were affected.

For customers and small businesses, the confusion came partly from the shared LINE name. A person can use the app for private conversations while also managing a business account, but those activities operate under different history and subscription rules.

A free notebook can preserve selected details

Official Account users who do not want the advanced plan can use the free notebook function to record customer preferences and other important information. The free service allows only one notebook in each chat room.

A notebook can hold a short working record, such as a customer's preferred product or an important instruction, so staff do not have to find the original exchange every time. Someone must select and record those details while they are available.

The notebook's usefulness depends on the task. Remembering a preference may require only a sentence. Reconstructing exactly what was agreed across a long conversation may require the original messages, dates and attachments.

Businesses can use the retention periods to decide which information needs attention first. Files shared in groups have the shortest stated window, at one week. Group pictures, audio and videos follow at two weeks. Individual conversations without the advanced plan have a much longer, but still limited, six month window.

That schedule makes the location of a conversation important. Two teams discussing similar customer work may face very different record keeping needs if one uses individual chats and the other uses groups.

Personal accounts have separate backup rules

Ordinary personal LINE accounts are unaffected by this Official Account display limit. Their backup arrangements are a separate issue: the free standard backup supports text messages, while backing up pictures, videos, files and voice messages requires LINE Premium.

LINE Premium for personal users and the Chat Advanced Plan for Official Accounts are different subscriptions. The Official Account guidance describes a business chat history service, while Premium covers benefits for personal accounts.

Public frustration also follows LINE's move to paid messaging features in Taiwan. Message editing was scheduled to leave its free trial on October 20, 2026, with silent messages moving to Premium in early November. The personal Premium subscription was priced at NT$165 a month.

For users deciding what to pay for, the first step is identifying the account and the record they want to preserve. An Official Account manager seeking older customer conversations needs to examine the business plan's viewing and retention rules. A personal user seeking a backup that includes media needs to examine personal backup benefits.

The central change for a business is access to its customer memory. Six months of visible history may cover recent enquiries, while repeat orders or older instructions can require a longer record. LINE's plan extends that window, with the greatest attachment benefit in individual conversations and text as the only content included in its backup function.

Key Points

• LINE Official Accounts without the Chat Advanced Plan can view the latest 183 days of conversations and cannot use the chat history backup function.
• The advanced plan provides access to eligible history for up to 1,830 days, beginning no earlier than January 1, 2024.
• Individual chat text and attachments receive the longer retention period under the plan.
• Group pictures, audio and videos remain limited to two weeks, and group files to one week, with or without the plan.
• Official Account chat backups contain text only. Older hidden conversations can become visible after subscribing and become hidden again after cancellation.
• Free notebooks allow one notebook per chat room. Ordinary personal accounts are outside the six month display rule.