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  • How do I delete or cancel my Facebook account?

How do I delete or cancel my Facebook account?

May 17, 2010 / Dave Taylor / Facebook Help / 12 Comments

I’m sick of the never-ending privacy changes at Facebook, frustrated that I have in good faith entered a ton of information about myself and my social circles, just to have them constantly tweak and fiddle things so that they can get more visibility and make more money, all while compromising my privacy. What’s up with that, Zuckerberg?? I’m done. How can I cancel, delete, erase, axe, kill my account?

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I can totally sympathize with you. It’s the only site I know where I have to go through the privacy settings and make sure things haven’t “evolved” to leave my information, connections and data more exposed to either search engine spiders or the public than I want. Really, it’s pretty incredibly lame on their part in a society where people complain all the time about loss of privacy in the digital world.
That’s another topic, however, I suppose. :-\
If you are sure that you do want to delete your Facebook account then here’s how you do that.
Are you sure that’s what you want to do, however, rather than just going into the privacy settings and minimizing your exposure?
Okay, okay. Here are the steps…
Go to “Account Settings”:

facebook delete account 1

Once your there, scroll down and at the bottom you’ll find:
facebook delete account 2

Click on the “deactivate” link on the right and you’ll see an exhaustive list of reasons why you might want to leave. They’re collecting data, obviously:
facebook delete account 3

Sounds like your issue is about privacy, so if you choose “I have a privacy concern” you’ll find a little editorial commentary from the Facebook team:
facebook delete account 4

A bit lower down you can also specify that people sending you friend invites (etc) will or won’t bother you:
facebook delete account 5

Again, I’d say you should think carefully before you check this option, but if you really want to never have Facebook darken your email doorstep again, this is how to do it.
Either way, click on “Deactivate My Account” if you’re sure that’s what you want to do. Now it’s time to go through the gauntlet, starting with your password again (just in case someone sees you logged in and decides it’d be a great practical joke to delete your account):
facebook delete account 6

Remembered your password? Good. Now prove you’re not a robot:
facebook delete account 7

This CAPTCHA requires the words “Society” “darneder” (whatever that means). Enter those correctly and click on “Submit”.
facebook delete account 8

Success! The account is officially shut down, removed, deleted and… um, just a sec. As you can see from the text above, Facebook doesn’t seem to delete your information, just deactivate the account. I’m guessing that’s not what you want, but it’s the best you can do.
By the way, a few minutes later you’ll get an email from Facebook about your deactivated Facebook account:
facebook delete account 9

So now you know. That’s the best you can do, and it does effectively shut down your Facebook account and prevent anyone else from using your email address in the future.

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Starbucks coffee cup I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by buying you a cup of coffee!

12 comments on “How do I delete or cancel my Facebook account?”

  1. Pat Dunn says:
    June 14, 2012 at 7:52 pm

    I’m sick of facebook always showing up on my computer. Please cancel my account &any messages
    on my facebook immediately!

    Reply
  2. Portia Quinn says:
    June 11, 2011 at 5:07 pm

    Thank god for your help…this onesave me a lots of hours

    Reply
  3. Yolanda Stevens says:
    September 19, 2010 at 3:57 pm

    Want to close down facebook, I have no use for it.

    Reply
  4. rommy says:
    September 4, 2010 at 3:58 am

    Hello I’m rommy,
    I want to ask about how to cancel resetting password? because my wife forget for email of FB account was not available anymore when she want reset her password in FB,her ID for FB use meyndra@samsung.com. There is company email and my wife already resign 1 year a go from there. Thx a lot

    Reply
  5. Hiam says:
    August 31, 2010 at 11:29 pm

    i want the help of facebook team to disable my facebook account.i tryied many times to deactivate it my go back again .so i need your help not to reactivate my facebook again.thank you very much

    Reply
  6. Hiam says:
    August 31, 2010 at 11:25 pm

    hi. i want your help to deactivate my facebook account,because i tryied to deactivate it many times then i reactivate it again.i spend too much time on facebook and i want really to stop this i cant do anything else in my life.so please i need your help to disable my facebook thank you very much

    Reply
  7. Gökhan Fırat says:
    June 19, 2010 at 10:08 am

    Dear Sir / Madam,
    I wasnt login the Facebook. These pages always gave that message ( Your account has been disabled by an administrator. If you have any questions or concerns, you can visit our FAQ page here) Please help me.
    What can I do about that? Why did you cancel or disable my account?
    Please open my account. If I did a wrong thing, I apologize you. I m waiting your suggests and soonest reply
    Best regards

    Reply
  8. Thomas says:
    June 2, 2010 at 2:18 am

    actually there is a way, here is the url for it
    you can also access it by clicking account>help centre and then search for “Delete my account” it will not be the first result, just click on it and it will lead you to the same page

    Reply
  9. soulglee says:
    May 21, 2010 at 4:30 pm

    facebook is one of my prefered social networks i will only deactivate it if they don’t let me to use two accounts because i already have one with a user name that i don’t want to use to create my page on facebook so if i can’t change it or create another account i will deactivate it and create an other account with a new user name and create my webpage on facebook.
    thank you dave i think this topic will help many people to change their accounts.

    Reply
  10. Ellie Arch says:
    May 17, 2010 at 10:49 am

    Thanks for this, I’m sure it’ll be useful to those who want to know how to delete their account…And for me if I wish to. Like people have said above, it is slightly creepy that facebook still keeps your information.. Hehe.
    Good article,
    Ellie

    Reply
  11. Scott says:
    May 17, 2010 at 10:01 am

    I might suggest that you first go in and remove any information you do not want associated with your identity. Facebook likely keeps the information somewhere anyway, but it is worth a try to at least take some association away from your account.
    I have not deactivated my account yet, I have locked down all the privacy settings and removed all my contact, education and employment information. Again, I am sure Facebook probably has a database of all this information locked away somewhere. Thankfully I have not shared all of this type of information on Facebook, because Zuckerberg owns it forever.

    Reply
  12. Enrik says:
    May 17, 2010 at 9:40 am

    Scary. Facebook doesn’t delete your information, but keeps it indefinitely. You can always reactivate your account and get back to your page.
    Imagine the value of that database for advertisers or various other “evil” institutions. Astronomical.
    Dare to resist the call of the ‘book!

    Reply

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