How to permanently delete a Facebook account

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Erasing a profile is one of the few things on Facebook that cannot be walked back. A cleared timeline can be rebuilt and a hidden account can be unhidden; this ends differently, because once the cancellation window has passed nobody at Meta can reconstruct what was there and the support channels have nothing to work with. So most of what follows is preparation rather than button pressing, since confirming the request itself takes under a minute.

Erasure sits next to its reversible twin

Facebook presents both endings on one screen, and the labels are the only thing distinguishing a month-long holiday from a full stop. Hiding an account leaves every byte of it on Meta's servers, ready to reappear; erasure instructs Meta to throw the contents away. If any part of you is undecided, take the reversible route and read the guide to hiding an account instead.

Export before anything else

Your account holds material that exists nowhere else: photographs taken on phones you no longer own, birthday messages from people you have lost touch with, event invitations that double as a diary. Facebook will build you a copy of it through the download tool in your account settings, and three choices inside that tool matter. The date range decides whether you get everything or a slice. The format decides what the archive is good for, the browsable option opening in a browser while the machine-readable one suits material heading into other software. And the media quality setting governs how your pictures and video come out, so check it rather than accepting whatever is selected.

Facebook builds the archive in the background and tells you when it is ready. Download it and open it before going further, since an archive you never checked is a guess rather than a backup, and the link does not stay live indefinitely. Video you posted deserves a second look, because the export hands you whatever Meta filed away rather than the version your audience sees, so pulling a clip that matters from its public link with the downloader gives you the published file too.

The pre-flight checklist

Everything below has to happen while you can still sign in:

• Sign-ins that lean on Facebook. Anywhere you tapped "continue with Facebook" to create an account, that route dies with the profile. Add an email address and password to those services first, or the account behind each one becomes unreachable too.
• Pages with no other administrator. What becomes of one depends on whether anybody else holds the role, and promoting a co-administrator is the only way to be sure it survives you.
• Anything with money attached. Advertising accounts, unspent balances, pending creator payouts and subscriptions bought through Facebook need settling while the account still opens.
• Your second factor. Keep the authenticator app or phone number working for the next month, because cancelling a request means signing in, and that means passing the check.

Doing it in a desktop browser

1. Request your archive and wait for it. Use the download tool in your account to build a copy of what you have posted. Nothing can be exported once the profile is gone.
2. Open the controls that govern account ownership. From Settings, work towards the Accounts Centre and its personal details area. Wording varies between builds, so navigate by destination.
3. Choose erasure, not the reversible option beside it. Both choices share one screen. Read which is which rather than pressing whichever button is highlighted, because only one can be undone.
4. Confirm ownership with your password. Facebook asks you to re-enter it before accepting the request. Treat any screen that skips the check as a reason to stop.
5. Stay signed out until the window closes. A sign-in during the grace period cancels the request, so clear saved credentials and let autofill nowhere near it.

Meta reshuffles these menus, and the layout you meet depends on your build and on whether your profile has been moved into an Accounts Centre alongside other Meta apps. Rather than follow a click path that may be a version out of date, open the deletion page in the Help Centre while signed in. It is Meta's own address for this, and it lands on whichever version of the flow your account uses.

Doing it in the mobile app

The destination is identical; only the furniture changes. Open the menu tab, which sits at one end of the navigation bar and has swapped ends between releases, then Settings, then the entry leading to your personal details. The app often hands the final steps to an in-app browser window, so a login-style prompt appearing mid-flow is normal. If your Accounts Centre holds more than one profile, read the name on the confirmation screen, because this is not a mistake you get to correct twice.

Thirty days, then up to ninety more

A confirmed request does not take effect immediately. Facebook holds it for thirty days, during which a single sign-in cancels the whole thing — the safety net for a decision made at two in the morning. Once that window closes the removal begins, and Meta's help pages put an outer bound of ninety days on clearing the copies in its backup systems, while stating that the material is not available to other people meanwhile.

Practical consequence: tidy up your devices as soon as the request is in. Sign out of the app everywhere, remove the saved password from your browser, and check that no television or games console is quietly holding a session, because any one of them reconnecting resets the clock.

Changing your mind inside the window

Sign in with the same email address or phone number and the same password, and Facebook reads the arrival as a change of heart, sometimes asking you to confirm you are keeping the account. Everything comes back, because nothing had gone yet. After the window there is nothing to appeal to, and a fresh signup produces a new empty profile that happens to share your name.

What outlives the profile

• Messages you sent. Copies already sitting in other people's inboxes belong to those conversations rather than to your account, and stay readable.
• What other people published. A photograph someone else uploaded, a post that names you, a comment quoting you — each belongs to the account that posted it, and removing yours does not reach any of it.
• Records Meta keeps for its own obligations. Some data is retained for legal, security and fraud purposes on a timescale of Meta's choosing rather than yours; the privacy policy is where that is spelled out.
• Your other Meta accounts. Instagram and WhatsApp are separate accounts even when they share an Accounts Centre with your profile, so closing one does not close another. If a screen offers to remove linked accounts as well, read it twice before agreeing.
• Search results, briefly. Third-party indexes refresh on their own schedule, so a stale snippet can outlive the page it describes.

When the flow will not cooperate

• You cannot remember the password. Recover the account first, because no route closes an account you cannot open.
• The account is restricted or locked. The ownership controls can be out of reach until the status is resolved, which is Meta's process to run rather than something a different browser fixes.
• The confirmation dialog never appears. Script-blocking extensions are the usual culprit, and a plain browser window rules that out.
• Friends can still see the profile weeks later. Almost always a sign-in cancelled the request, or the reversible option was chosen by mistake.
• The account holder has died. Nothing in the self-service flow applies. Meta operates separate memorialisation and next-of-kin routes, the only ones open to a relative.

Questions people ask

Does this close Messenger as well?

Messenger runs on top of the Facebook account, so it goes when the account goes and nothing more can be sent through it. Conversations already sent stay with the people who received them.

Will my Instagram profile be removed at the same time?

No. They are distinct accounts that can be linked for convenience, and ending one leaves the other running with its own login. Instagram has an equivalent process, started from inside Instagram.

What happens to a Page I am the only administrator of?

That depends on whether anyone else holds an administrator role, and Facebook's help material on Page roles is the authority for your case.

Can I ask for my archive once the account has gone?

No, and it is the most expensive of the common mistakes. The export tool lives inside the account and disappears with it.

Do my comments on other people's posts disappear too?

Anything published from your account, comments included, is removed along with it. What stays behind is other people's writing about you and the replies they made, since those live in their accounts.

Weighing it up

The mechanics are straightforward: export, confirm, keep away for a month. The decision is the hard part, and it is easier made with an archive already on your laptop, because that turns an irreversible step into a survivable one. If you find yourself hesitating over the confirmation, that hesitation is information.