Well, hopefully I'm not wrong because my understanding is that once you have the images down and the accounts closed/deactivated/opt out I was under the impression that you could go exclusive.  I'm planning on mashing the button on that Jun 6 once I can take all my last bit of images off dreamstime.  I would then remove Ft and opt out on shutter stock...

The main thing is not having any images that can be bought RF anywhere. It's next to impossible to get every affilliate to remove all the thumbs, at least I didn't have much luck by way of email and I don't speak chinese. 

I agree. I still see the thumbnails from affiliate sites but theyare not available for sale. Will IS be ok with that?

The reply I got from Istock was "they understand". You might want to shoot them an email just in case.

There's been rejections in the past for having images on Flickr, photo.net, etc.  I don't want to be one of them.

So, I've taken my time to have EVERYTHING removed.  I don't want to be rejected and have to wait 3 months to apply again. 

The thumbnails are still there, but they are not available for sale. Maybe I should wait until next week to take the plunge.

Hi Eric, I didn't know all of FT's affiliates. However I sitemailed FT support and asked for my image removal. After a couple of days, the thumbnail images are still there but they are no longer available for sales. FT seems to be friendly enough to deal with.

Other people from the forum provided the email for picmax and imagetrail so I also copied my FT sitemail to them through email.

I deleted other sites a while ago so I assume everything should be fine. I postponed FT deletion because they were selling well.

I haven't applied for exclusivity yet. Can anyone tell me how long it will take for Google's search engine to update the new results?

According to Achilles via a thread on their forums - disabled files are automatically deleted every few months (regularly between 6-12). If you have older files, they might've been missed by the scripts or maybe something else happened (e.g. you reactivated them at some point). You should email support a list of IDs.

EDIT: Sorry, I typed an incorrect post  here.

Sorry everyone.  This is the correct post:

According to Achilles via a thread on their forums - disabled files are automatically deleted every few months (regularly between 6-12). If you have older files, they might've been missed by the scripts or maybe something else happened (e.g. you reactivated them at some point). You should email support a list of IDs.

Thanks cuppacoffee.  I was rather asking about the regular thumbnails displaying in the portfolio. Those anyone can see.    Once you disable an image, how long does it take for its thumbnail in the portfolio to disappear?

Once you disable them they are immediately gone from your online portfolio, they move to a "disabled" area and sit there until DT deletes them permanently. No one can see them as soon as you hit the Disable button. I believe they leave them in this holding tank in case you decide to re enable them.

Thanks again cuppacoffee.  Then I'll have to contact Dreamstime.  I disabled my images a couple of days ago, but the thumbnails are still there.  

Quick question Freedom. Where did you find alll the Fotolia affiliates? I closed FT last week after erasing all my images. I'm just waiting on a couple of sales for payout at 123RF and my photos are locked until June 24th at DT but I deleted almost all of them. I'm keeping SS open until the end. So hopefully, on June 24th, I'll delete all I have left at DT, click the little box to opt out of SS and I should have deleted my 123RF files at the beginning of june. All the other sites are now closed or the photos are deleted since a week or two.

Do you think I missed anything?

It can take a couple of days for the "opt-out" thing to fully kick in on SS.  For FT affiliates, Google and Google Images.  Search on your name and the account ID that you use on FT...some places can have them under both.  Pixmac had me in there twice...once under my name and once under the ID was using for either FT or DT.  ImageTrail managed to keep picking stuff up from somewhere, and I had to send a couple of emails to them to get my images removed.

I only anticipate deletion from Fotolia because I head about problems with their affiliates - so I delete my portfolio form FT almost one month before others. Then once I deleted my last images from DT and removed all my portfolio from SS with one click ( THANK YOU SHUTTERStOCK ) I have immediately applied for exclusivity. No problems even if many thumbnails were still present.