Thinking about deleting your Facebook Account?
Learn what are the pitfalls you may face
what an alternative you have, and how to do it step by step (with pictures)
There are many reasons why someone will want to delete his/her Facebook account, from privacy issues, misinformation, policies that make you angry, fake news and the list goes on.
But deleting your account has many pitfalls that you may regret in the future, you may want to try an alternative and temporarily deactivate your account instead.
You can delete or deactivate your Facebook account from the same screen, first you need to login to your account, and then follow these steps:
- Click the top right menu
- Click on settings and privacy
- Click on settings
- Click on ‘Your Facebook Information’ in the left menu
- Click on ‘View’ on the right bottom
- And in the final screen you can choose to deactivate or delete your Facebook account.
- You must verify it’s you with your Facebook account password.
For a step by step tutorial you can watch this video, or follow the step by step instructions (with pictures) below.
Continue reading, to find out how you can deactivate or permanently delete your Facebook account.
Learn about the pitfalls of deleting your account, and why you should temporarily deactivate it instead.
Table Of Contents:
- Why you should not delete your Facebook account
- Is it better to deactivate or delete your Facebook account?
- How much time do you have to regret your decision?
- How can I delete my Facebook account permanently and immediately?
- Step by step (with pictures) on how to deactivate or delete your Facebook Account
- How to delete your Facebook account on the iphone (Video)
- What happens when you deactivate your Facebook account (and what about Messenger)?
- How to deactivate messenger (Video)
- How do I call or contact Facebook to delete my old account?
- How can I recover my old account (with pictures)?
Why you should not delete your Facebook account
You should reconsider whether or not you want to delete your facebook account.
Deleting your Facebook account is permanent and can create new issues for you:
- You will lose all your friends on facebook
- You will lose your profile with your timeline posts
- You will lose all the images and videos you have uploaded
- You will lose any access to messenger
- You will lose access to any third party account you have opened with by using the
Facebook Login (Connect) button, you will need to re-open a new account on those websites, or try to recover the account by contacting customer support.
- You will lose all of your pages and groups with all the followers and group members
- You will lose all the historic data from your ad account, if you have advertised on facebook before.
So as you can see you probably better off deactivating your account temporarily instead of deleting it permanently.
Is it better to deactivate or delete my Facebook account?
Facebook gives you the ability to deactivate your account temporarily if you want to take a break from facebook, other users will not be able to contact you and send you messages.
So what is better deactivating or deleting your facebook account?
If you just want to take a break from facebook, and you want to prevent others from contacting you, it is better to deactivate your account temporarily.
Deleting your account will cause you to lose all your friends list, and all your assets (like groups and pages).
So it is not advised to delete your facebook account in most cases.
The only time you actually want to delete your account is if facebook is getting on your nerves, and you 100% sure you don’t want to continue to use the platform.
In all other cases it is advised you should just deactivate your account instead of deleting it.
How much time do you have to regret your decision?
If you have decided to delete your account permanently, you will have a grace period of 30 days to regret your decision.
Facebook doesn’t start the deletion process until 30 days have passed since you confirmed the deletion request.
After you have decided to delete your account:
- You can still login to your account during the 30 days grace period
- And cancel the deletion.
After 30 days since the initial request , the deletion process will be initiated , the account and all of it’s information will not be accessible anymore to anyone.
It may take up to 90 days for facebook to completely delete all the data associated with your account.
Facebook has copies of data from your account for emergency situations that may cause data loss. So it'll take them a while to get rid from all your data, because it’s not in one place.
Your data on facebook may be spread through many data centers and backup formats, including offline backup like magnetic tapes.
Even after 90 days, they can still keep copies of your data if they suspect it’s necessary for legal issues.
‘It is not certain that in any situation Facebook will erase 100% of your account data’
How can I delete my Facebook account permanently?
To delete your Facebook account immediately and permanently without manually following the steps above, click on the following link:
Click to delete your Facebook account permanently and immediately
If you want to deactivate your account instead of deleting it, follow the instructions below.
Step by step (with pictures) on how to Deactivate or Delete your Facebook Account manually
Go to Facebook.com , login to your account , and follow these steps
Step1 - click on the top right menu on facebook
Step2 - click on settings and privacy
Step3 - click on settings
Step 4 - click on ‘Your Facebook information’ on the left menu
Step 5 - on the bottom right click on ‘view’ , this will take you to the final screen where you can choose to deactivate or delete your facebook account.
Step 6 - in order to deactivate or delete your facebook account you will need to verify it’s you with a password. As a security measure.
How to delete your Facebook account on the iphone
Watch this video for instructions on how you can delete your account on the iphone
What happens when you Deactivate your Facebook account (and what about Messenger)?
The following things happen when you deactivate your Facebook account (not deleting):
- Your profile will be invisible and nobody will be able to reach it or interact with it.
- Your name and profile picture will still be visible to your friends, and the messages you sent them will still be in their message inbox.
- Nobody can contact you or send you messages on facebook.
In other words, all the content you have created on facebook is still visible, content like posts and comments in groups and pages, and private messages between you and your friends.
The only thing that is not visible and functional is your profile, and the ability to send you messages and interact with your profile.
- Your name and profile will not be visible in Facebook search, but it is still visible in Messenger search.
People can still find you on Messenger and contact you there.
Notice - messenger will still be active when you deactivate your facebook account, so you will need to also deactivate your messenger if you don’t want to receive messages on messenger.
If you do not deactivate your Messenger in addition to the deactivation of your Facebook account, friends will still be able to send you messages on Messenger.
Watch the following video to learn how you can deactivate your messenger step by step
How do I call or contact Facebook to delete my old account?
You can easily delete your account if you have access to it. But if you can’t log-in to your old account you will need to restore access to your account first.
In this scenario you need to recover your old account password first, and then delete it.
How can I recover my old account?
In order to recover your old account follow the following steps:
- Go to your old profile page
- Click on the ‘...’ (three dots) below the profile page cover image
- Select ‘Find support or report profile’
- From the report dialogue, select ‘I can’t access my account’
- Then click on ‘Recover this account’
- You will then enter a new screen where you can reset your password via email
Here is a step by step of the process (with pictures):
Step 1 - go to your old profile and click the three dots icon on the bottom right below the cover image.
Step 2 - select ‘Find support or report profile’ in the menu
Step 3 - choose the option ‘I can’t access my account’
Step 4 - click on recover this account
Step 5 - choose how you want to reset your password
After you have recovered your password and logged in to your account, you can immediately deactivate or delete your Facebook account using the steps given, or by visiting the following link.
Click to delete your Facebook account permanently and immediately
Final Thoughts
Deleting your account has major consequences , it is better to deactivate your account temporarily, so you won’t lose any of the data, assets and connections you have already established.
Helpful Resources:
- Delete your Facebook account
- Deactivate Facebook messenger
- Recover old Facebook account
- Recover an account for another website or service using Facebook
- Reset password if you don’t have access to your email account or mobile phone
- Change or reset your Facebook password
