How To Remove Yourself From Facebook

If you want to delete your Facebook account, it will prove more difficult than you think to erase yourself permanently from the social network.   Facebook has ever-changing privacy policies, so becoming Facebook-free requires a few more steps than just clicking delete my account.

You need to remember that account deletion is not the same as account deactivation. It is fairly easy to deactivate your account at any time.  This means your Timeline and information will disappear from Facebook, but only until you reactivate your account.  If you delete your account, it means you can never access your account again.  This also means that you won’t be able to retrieve any of your content.

So if you absolutely want out of Facebook forever, please follow this short step-by-step guide to erase your social networked nuances!

1) Back up your Facebook information.

You can download a copy of your data, including your posts and photos. It would be wise to save photos, contact and other information you’ll need while your account is still active and running. When you download a copy of your Facebook data, it will be in a ZIP file consisting of all your posts, including photos and videos.

2) Check your linked apps.

Find out what apps are connected to your Facebook account. Then, change your form of login on these apps. By linked apps I mean things like Pinterest, Instagram and Spotify .  Connected apps have access to your “basic information.” This includes user ID’s, public info and our friends list.  What you want is to completely cut off any associations between the app and your Facebook account.

3) Turn off your apps on Facebook.

You need to turn off your “platform” and remove apps from your Facebook account.  Once you’ve changed your form of login in the apps, now is the time to remove and disable them in your Facebook settings.  By turning off the platform and removing the apps, information about your apps is unable to be recovered and your user ID will not be shared with the app.

4) See what information remains on your apps.

Because the apps you use are maintained by developers who are not a part of Facebook, they may still hold onto the information you have previously shared. It is recommended by Facebook to contact the app directly to request they delete your data.

5) Clear your Facebook history.

You now need to click “remove” or “unlike” for each action on the Activity Log page of your account.  After you delete your Facebook account, your check-ins, tags, comments and likes on other people’s pages will disappear.  To be safe though, you should open your “Activity Log” page and erase your actions on Facebook.

6) Delete your Facebook account.

Ok, this is it.  It’s the final step.  There is no going back.  Click “Delete My Account” to permanently erase your Facebook account.  After you have confirmed that you wanted to delete your account, it is good to check your email to ensure the deletion process has started.

Now just make sure you avoid logging into your Facebook account for 14 days. If you do login during this period, your account will be restored!  And beware that it takes about one month to delete your account, but some information may remain in backup copies for up to 90 days.