If you've decided that you’re done with Facebook, you're not alone — in
recent years, an increasing number of users have opted to drop their
accounts.However, the process of completely and permanently deleting
your account is anything but intuitive. To start learning how to save
all of the data you need and delete your account for good, see Step 1
below! 1.Log in to Facebook. You can't permanently delete your
account without logging in to Facebook first. If you could, it would be
much easier for people with malicious intent to delete unwitting users'
Facebook accounts. To begin the process of account deletion, visit
Facebook.com and provide your login info as you normally would.
Some users who forget their login information are faced with the
frustrating situation of wanting to delete an account they can no longer
log into. For help logging in, click the "Can't log in?" link on the
log in screen below the boxes for your email and password. Follow the
instructions on the following page to attempt to retrieve your account
information with your email account, phone number, user name, or actual
full name.
2
Save any data you need. Before you delete your
account, save anything from your account that there is chance you will
need later. Depending on your needs, this may include contact
information, photos, personal profile content, and more. You will lose
access to all of this when you delete your account, so now is your
chance to make a backup of any important data.
If there's only a few things you need to save, you may want to save
the data manually — for instance, copying important text to a word
document and downloading any pictures by clicking the Download link at the bottom when you open them.
On the other hand, if there's a lot of data you want to save or you
are unsure, you may want to download a copy of all of your Facebook
data. You can do this using the Settings menu. From your main profile
page, click the downward-pointing triangle in the very top right of the
page, then click "Settings". On the Settings menu, click the small link
that says “Download a copy of your Facebook data”. Follow the prompts to
verify your identity and begin your download.
So how do you make a clean break? You’ve got two choices—deactivating your Facebook account or deleting it outright.
Deactivate your account
Click the downward arrow to access the Settings menu in Facebook. From there, you can deactivate or delete your account.
Deactivating your Facebook account puts it on hiatus: Your profile will
be removed from the site, as will most of what you posted to Facebook
(though messages and other things will stick around), but Facebook will
retain your data in case you decide to come back. You can always
reactivate your account later by logging in to Facebook.
To deactivate your account, log in to Facebook, and select the settings
menu in the upper-right corner (represented by a downward arrow icon).
Choose Settings from the menu, and then on the next screen select Security from the list along the left side of the window.
Once there, click Deactivate your account toward the bottom of
the page. Facebook will try to guilt you into staying by showing you
photos of your Facebook friends, and then ask you why you want to
deactivate your account. Once you tell Facebook why you don’t want to be
friends anymore, click the Confirm button, enter your password one last time, and Facebook will proceed to deactivate your account.
Was it something I said? When you deactivate your account, Facebook will ask you why you don’t love it anymore.
Kill your account altogether
Deleting your account, on the other hand, kills it completely: You won’t
be able to log back in to retrieve or view anything you’ve posted to
Facebook, and if you want to use Facebook again, you’ll have to start
from scratch.
Facebook recommends that you download a copy of the data you’ve
published to the site before you delete your account. Open the Settings
menu on Facebook while logged in to your account by clicking the
downward arrow icon. Next, select Settings, and on the General Account Settings page, look for Download a copy of your Facebook data and click the link. The service will then guide you through the process of downloading an archive of all your Facebook data.
A link at the bottom of the General Account Settings
page lets you download all of your Facebook data before you take the
drastic step of deleting your account completely.
The company doesn’t make it immediately obvious as to how to delete your
Facebook account, but to do so, log in to Facebook with your account,
and then visit Facebook’s account deletion form to carry out the process.
Keep in mind that once your Facebook account is gone, it’s gone, so you
should delete your account only if you’re really, really sure that you
won’t use Facebook again.
