How to Delete Facebook Account – Step By Step

There are a number of reasons why you might want to delete your Facebook account. Maybe you want to revoke the license you have granted to Facebook to use your intellectual property by posting it—when you delete your account, this license expires. Perhaps you have decided that you do not want your information to be available to advertisers anymore, or maybe you have qualms about Facebook’s ethics. Maybe you just want to cut down on your time spent playing CityVille and Angry Birds. In any case, if you have decided to delete your account, this article will explain how to go about doing it.

First of all, you have to decide whether you want to delete your account permanently or just deactivate it. If you deactivate your account, your profile will be hidden but your information will remain on Facebook’s servers. In order to reactive your account, all you have to do is log back in to Facebook. If you want to deactivate your account, access the Account Settings menu and choose the Security Settings tab. From there, click on the “Deactivate your account” link at the bottom of the page, let Facebook know your reason for deactivating your account, check the box to indicate whether or not you want to continue receiving e-mail from Facebook, and click Confirm.

If, on the the other hand, you want to permanently delete your account, you should first delete any accounts at other websites, such as Google, Yahoo!, CNN, CBS, Myspace, Windows Live, PayPal, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, or Yelp, which are linked to your Facebook account. If you leave these accounts open and sign in to them within 14 days after requesting that Facebook delete your account, your deletion request will be canceled. After you have done this, you may want to back up your Facebook data for your personal records. To do this, navigate to the Account Settings page and click the “Download a copy of your Facebook data” link at the bottom of the page. Once you are ready to delete your account, browse to the Delete Account page at Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account. Click Delete My Account, and then wait 14 days without logging in to your Facebook account or any linked accounts at other websites. After that, your account will be permanently deleted, although some information will remain on Facebook’s servers for up to 90 days. Even after you permanently delete your account, any posts you have made to groups or messages you have sent to friends will remain visible.