Record-cleaning questions start with the record and the goal.

Start with the phrase itself. No California option makes every record disappear — the courts say so directly. What exists instead is a set of relief options that may reduce the impact of a criminal record depending on the situation. That is the honest frame for every question on this page: not whether a record can be erased, but which relief may apply to a specific record and what that relief would and would not change for work, licensing, housing, or disclosure.

The paths are also not interchangeable. California Courts publishes a separate guide to cleaning misdemeanor convictions, separate guidance on felony reduction, including Proposition 47, and a distinct arrest-with-no-conviction guide for records where no conviction ever resulted. A misdemeanor conviction may point toward a dismissal petition, a qualifying felony may raise reduction questions before anything else, and an arrest without a conviction can raise sealing questions that follow different rules entirely.

Record cleaning and broader post-conviction review are also different categories. Record cleaning asks how an existing record is shown or shared going forward. Post-conviction review asks whether a past conviction or sentence should itself be revisited — the courts’ felony reduction and Proposition 47 guidance is one published example, where the classification of a qualifying past conviction can be reviewed. Whether either category applies to a specific record depends on the record and on current law; no page can promise eligibility, and counsel should review the actual documents before any path is chosen.