This guide shows you how to remove your social media presence. It covers how to delete all social media accounts at once and gives you strategies on how to hide your identity when posting online in the future. It includes recommendations for the best company for you to use for helping removing personal information from the internet as well as creating a new, anonymous identity.
If you’re thinking of cleaning up your online presence, let us help you get started. Delete all your posts from Twitter; Remove old Facebook photos; Ditch pics from MySpace; Get rid of Google+ and LinkedIn; Protect your identity from being linked on the internet. Here’s how to remove yourself from the big social networks so that no future employers or strangers can find you easily.
How to delete a Facebook profile
When it comes to your Facebook profile, you have two main options: deactivating or permanently deleting your account. Both of which come with their own set of advantages and disadvantages, depending on how certain you are about deleting your profile.
Option 1: Deactivating Facebook
Facebook keeps a record of every single thing you post or share online. If you decide just to deactivate your profile, these posts will not be deleted, however, your name and photo will be removed from that post. During this time, no one will be able to search and find your profile, unless you choose to reactivate your profile in the future.
How to:To deactivate your account, go to Settings > Your Facebook information > Deactivation and deletion. From there you can select to deactivate your account.
It’s important to note, that even when deactivated, your Facebook messages to other users may still be active. So, you may wish to deactivate Messenger separately too.
Option 2: Deleting Facebook permanently
If you wish to stop using this social media platform entirely and stop Facebook from storing any data on you, then a permanent deletion is in order.
How to:To do this, again go to Settings > Your Facebook information > Deactivation and deletion and select the option to permanently delete your account.
This process takes around 90 days to be entirely completed and, after that, your account will not be able to be restored. Nor will you be able to use Messenger, however, messages you have sent others will still be available in their inbox.
How to delete your Twitter account
When it comes to deleting Twitter, you’ll find that the process is incredibly simple.
How to:Head to Settings > Deactivate your account and, once you confirm a few details, you’ll be able to deactivate your account. After 30 days, if you have not recovered your account, your profile and all your data will be deleted permanently.
This 30-day grace period allows you to change your mind and is useful if your account has been wrongly deactivated. You will need to contact Twitter before the 30 days are up, though, otherwise your Tweets and activity will already be permanently deleted.
How to delete your Instagram profile
Like Facebook, Instagram gives you two options – deactivation and deletion. With deactivation, your profile and photographs will no longer be seen, however, Instagram will store all of your data, allowing you to fully restore your profile to how it was before. A permanent deletion means all of your data will be removed.
Option 1: Deactivating Instagram
How to:To deactivate your Instagram account, you will need to login through a web browser. Here just go to profile and click Edit profile > temporarily disable my Instagram account, which will be an option at the bottom of the page. You will need to select a reason why you are disabling before you can complete the action.
To reactivate your account, simply log back in. You may not be able to do this for several hours after you first deactivated your account.
Option 2: Delete Instagram permanently
If you wish to delete your account permanently, you will need to go to the Delete Your Account page and follow the instructions. This will need to be completed on a web browser and cannot be done via the Instagram app. After clicking that delete button, you will not be able to recover your account – including photographs and followers.
Alternatives to deleting your social media accounts
Often, we can rashly believe that we want to totally remove all social media from our lives. A few months or years down the line, though, you might regret the lost memories or that you’re no longer in touch with certain people you only talked to online.
So, rather than deleting your profile straight away, here are some alternatives to try first:
1. Have a social media detox
Sometimes we all need a break from social media. As, regardless of whether you’re feeling down or you’re simply finding yourself procrastinating when you should be working or studying, sometimes you just need a little break.
Suggestion:One of the easiest ways to start a social media detox is by deleting the apps of your smartphone or tablet. That way, when you do reach for your phone when you should be doing something else, you won’t have the temptation to start scrolling through posts and photographs.
Of course, not all of us have the willpower to keep from downloading apps again. To combat this, ask a close friend or family member to change your password for you. That way you will be properly locked out until that chosen person can get you back in.
2. Privatise your social media
If the thought of strangers looking through your tweets or your Instagram photos has started to make you uneasy, there is always the option to make your social media platforms private.
- Facebook – Make sure your privacy settings are set to only friends. To do this, simply go to Settings > privacy and from there you can change your settings to what you are comfortable with. You can even make it so you don’t appear in searches.
- Instagram – By going to Edit profile, you can switch your account to a private account, where potential followers will need to request access to your account.
- Twitter – Similar to Instagram, by heading to Settings > Privacy and safety > Protect my tweets. After clicking this option, only your followers will be able to see your tweets. Keep in mind, though, if someone does not follow you, they will not be able to see your replies i.e. if you regularly reply to celebrities.
3. Have a social media clear-out
If you are concerned about who is viewing your photos or messages, yet you’re not looking to make your accounts private, there are still options, such as:
- Check your friend and follower lists. If there is anyone who you no longer want looking at your Facebook profile, simply delete them off your friend list. The same goes for followers, if there are any bots, trolls or anyone else you’d like to remove from your life, simply block them.
- If you’re worried about silly posts you made in the past, yet you don’t wish to entirely delete a profile and start again, then it’s worth spending an afternoon going through a profile and deleting anything old and irrelevant to yourself or brand at this point.
How to Delete Snapchat
You can delete your Snapchat account using the Snapchat account portal. This webpage allows you to manage your data and apps, but more importantly, gives you the option to delete your account.
Simply open the webpage, log into Snapchat and select Delete My Account. This will take you to a page explaining the deactivation process. Like Twitter, once 30 days have passed, your account will be permanently deleted.
To confirm that you would like to delete your Snapchat account, you need to re-enter your username and password, then select Continue.
Websites That Help You Delete Social Media Accounts
There are certain websites dedicated to helping you delete your social media presence. From sites that send account deletion requests on your behalf to sites that give you instructions to delete accounts, here are some websites you can use…
Deseat.me
Deseat.me uses either your Google account or your Outlook account to generate a list of your online and social media accounts. It then gives you the option to sort through and delete these accounts.
A great aspect of the service is the sheer extent of what it covers. It will find accounts linked to your email that you have long forgotten about. It also identifies newsletters that you can choose to unsubscribe from.
However, Deseat.me requires access to your emails to do this, which can be a dealbreaker for many users. If you do choose to use the tool, we recommend immediately revoking access once you are done cleaning up your social media accounts. We would also not recommend using this service for email accounts with sensitive content.
When you select an account for deletion, Deseat.me generates a data removal request that it sends from your email address to the relevant platform
The option to request removal is not available for all accounts. Deseat.me will note whether this option is unavailable and provide instructions for how to delete an account on the specific platform.
More Websites to Help Delete Your Social Media Accounts
If you don’t want to use a tool like Deseat.me, you can use sites like JustDelete.Me and AccountKiller.com.
These sites don’t require any permissions since they don’t access your specific accounts. Rather, they aggregate account deactivation links for various websites. You will need to search for specific sites relevant to you.
Are Some Social Media Profiles Impossible to Delete?
According to JustDeleteMe, there are some profiles that are impossible to delete. Luckily for social media users, none of these impossible sites are among the major public social media platforms. Most websites now support account deletion due to GDPR regulations and other privacy laws.
Netflix, for example, now lets users request earlier deletion of a canceled account via email. It now also automatically deletes accounts that have been canceled for over 10 months.
Other sites that previously didn’t include a delete option, such as Pinterest and Steam, have now also introduced this functionality. We have also covered how to delete your Kik account and how to delete your TikTok account.
How to Do a Social Media Detox
If deleting accounts permanently feels a bit too drastic, you can choose to take a break from social media instead. This helps you get away from the pressures and adverse effects of certain platforms without losing data that you’ll want to use again one day.
Google+
If you have a Google account, chances are you have some presence of a Google+ profile. While there is a delete option in your account settings, not all of your data will be removed. You will have to go into separate services to delete specific accounts. For example, deleting your Google+ account does not delete the pictures that you’ve shared; you will need to do that in Picasa. Any local reviews that you’ve made will also remain online. Thus, there’s no true way to completely delete your Google+ shadow other than erasing your public profile and having your posts hidden.
Websites that delete accounts for you
Specific websites are committed to completely deleting your social media presence. One site, Deseat.me, uses your Google or Outlook account to create a list of your online and social media accounts and gives you the option to delete these. One beneficial aspect of this site is that it finds accounts linked to your email that you may have forgotten about and deletes these accounts and cancels subscriptions. You can also choose which accounts you want to delete and which ones you want to save.
Other site options are JustDelete.Me and AccountKiller.com, which come up with separate account deactivation links. However, they don’t track which sites you have accounts for. There is a standard list for everyone and it’s up to you to find which links apply to you.
Apps that delete accounts
While there aren’t any apps that entirely delete your social media presence, there are ones that clean it up.
Instant Cleaner is an app designed specifically for Instagram. It won’t delete your account, but it will let you perform bulk post deletions.
Another app, Clear, scans social media to locate any offensive posts. The app was created by a developer who lost his job because of some tweets he posted years ago.
Xpire is an app, similar to Clear, that is aimed at scanning and deleting tweets. It is limited to your most recent 3,200 tweets due to the site’s API, but it does allow for bulk deletion of tweets and will also grade your profile based on any risky content.
Conclusion
If you want to remove your social media presence, here is a step-by-step guide to deleting all your accounts at once.