Renew Forge → Evidence export downloads the evidence journal (cancellations, reminders, checks) or the reminder log (planned, sent, failed, skipped) for a period of up to 366 days at a time, as CSV or JSON, exactly as recorded.
Keep records for (years), on the same screen: default 6 — the time limit for claims on a contract in England and Wales (Limitation Act 1980, s. 5); 0 means never delete. Journal entries and finished reminder log rows older than that are deleted once a day, in batches, while the licence is active, and each deletion is itself recorded in the journal (“Old records deleted (retention)”: how many records, which dates). Records are never edited. Records of a subscription with an unfinished refund or a recently opened cooling-off period are kept whatever their age.
Personal data: WordPress’s Tools → Export Personal Data and Erase Personal Data cover the journal and the reminder log. Erasure removes the link to the customer’s account and any phone numbers or email addresses inside error texts, keeps the evidence of what was sent and agreed (subscription number, dates, amounts, keyed hashes), records what it did, and tells WordPress the records were retained, with the reason.
The free plugin on its own never deletes a journal record.