How to cancel or delete your Audible account
By Otabek Mamadaliev · Sources last reviewed · What this means
How do I delete my Audible account?
Cancelling your Audible membership keeps the audiobooks you own. Deleting the account means closing the Amazon account behind it, which destroys the entire library permanently.
These are two very different actions, and people confuse them constantly. Cancelling the membership stops the monthly charge and you keep every audiobook you have bought. Deleting the account means closing your Amazon account, which erases the whole library with no refund.
If you want to stop paying, cancel. Do not delete.
Cancel the membership
- Sign in on the Audible website — cancellation is not in the app.
- Open Account Details.
- Choose to cancel your membership and work through the retention offers.
Use unspent credits first. Audible forfeits any remaining credits at the end of your final billing cycle, and a credit is worth roughly the price of a book.
What happens to your audiobooks
- Books you bought or used credits on: Audible's own words are that an audiobook bought with a credit, credit card or debit card “is yours forever”, always available in your library with unlimited re-downloads.
- Audible Plus catalogue titles: access ends — those were borrowed, not bought.
- Unspent credits: forfeited at the end of your final billing cycle.
Two things to try before cancelling
Audible offers both of these and most people never see them:
- Pause the membership. Eligible monthly plans can be paused for up to 90 days, once every 12 months. Your credits stay active and your member benefits stay intact — this is the right move for a break rather than an exit.
- Switch to a cheaper plan. Downgrading keeps the credits you already have, right through to their original expiry dates.
If you subscribed through Apple or Google, Audible cannot cancel you
This is the single most common reason people think they cancelled and keep getting charged. If you started the membership from inside the iOS app, the billing relationship is with Apple, not Audible — and Audible's own site has no power to stop it. Audible support cannot cancel it for you either.
- Billed by Apple: cancel at Settings → your name → Subscriptions → Audible on the device. Nothing on audible.com will work.
- Billed by Google: cancel in the Play Store → Subscriptions.
- Billed by Audible directly: cancel on the website under Account Details, as above.
One good side effect: credits earned on an App Store membership do not expire, and stay in your account after cancellation. Credits on a directly billed membership are forfeited at the end of the final billing cycle. Same product, different rules, entirely because of where you signed up.
Regional Audible accounts are separate accounts
Audible.com, audible.co.uk, audible.ca and the other regional sites run separate account portals with separate libraries. If you moved country and started a new membership, cancelling one does nothing to the other, and the audiobooks do not merge.
Check each region you have ever subscribed in before you conclude you have stopped paying. A dormant membership on a regional site you have forgotten about is still billing someone.
What you keep, what locks, what disappears
| Cancel membership | Close the Amazon account | |
|---|---|---|
| Books bought with a credit or card | Kept, unlimited re-downloads | Gone |
| Audible Plus catalogue titles | Locked — they were borrowed | Gone |
| Unused credits | Forfeited (unless App Store billed) | Gone |
| Bookmarks, clips and notes | Kept with the book | Gone |
| Kindle library and order history | Untouched | Gone |
Cancelling Audible does not touch Prime, Prime Video, Kindle Unlimited or your ordinary Amazon shopping. Those are billed separately and survive independently — which is exactly why cancelling is almost always what you actually want.
Download everything before you cancel
Owned titles stay in your library, but "in your library" means on Audible's servers, behind an account you may later lose access to. If the library matters to you, download the files to a device you control while the membership is still active — re-downloading is unlimited, but only for as long as the Amazon account behind it exists.
Actually deleting
Audible has no separate account to delete; it runs on your Amazon account. Removing it means closing Amazon entirely, which takes Kindle books and order history with it. See the Amazon guide.
There is no way to delete Audible while keeping Amazon. If your goal is to stop Audible knowing anything about you, cancelling is as far as you can go without destroying the Kindle library, the order history and any Prime membership attached to the same account. For most people that trade is not worth making.
Common questions
Do I keep my audiobooks if I cancel Audible?
Yes. Audible says a book bought with a credit or card is yours forever, with unlimited re-downloads. Only Audible Plus catalogue titles, which were borrowed, become unavailable.