Had your time on Facebook, and now looking to move on? You probably don’t want to leave your data behind, while uninstalling the app or logging out from your Facebook account. As you may know, the social networking platform stores and sells your data. The right approach would be to delete Facebook account. Now, this will permanently delete everything associated with your social media account, including photos, friends, and posts. If you’re just not there yet and just want some time off, then deactivating the Facebook account is probably the better choice. Either way, we’ve got you covered. Below is a step-by-step guide on how to delete Facebook account and how to deactivate Facebook account. Take a look
How to deactivate Facebook account immediately
You have the option to deactivate Facebook account via app as well as browser. If you’re doing it on phone using the app, follow the steps below
How to deactivate Facebook account on Android mobile phone/ iPhone
- Open Facebook app
- Tap on the ‘hamburger icon’ and look for ‘Settings & Privacy’ (assuming that you have already logged in to your account)
- From the drop-down menu, select ‘Settings’
- Scroll down to ‘Your Facebook information’ section and tap on ‘Account Ownership and control’. Alternatively, you can search for ‘Account Ownership and control’ from the search box atop.
- Select ‘Deactivation and Deletion’ –> ‘Deactivate account’ –> ‘Continue to Account Deactivation’
- Enter your password and your Facebook account will be deactivated.
The company says that “it’ll temporarily disable your account and remove your name and photos from most things you’ve shared.” You’ll be able to continue using Messenger though.
How to deactivate Facebook account on PC using a browser
- Click on the down icon next to your profile and look for ‘Settings & Privacy’
- The rest of the steps to deactivate Facebook account remains the same as stated above
- You select ‘Settings’ –> ‘Your Facebook information’ –> ‘Deactivate Account’ –> ‘Continue to Account Deactivation’
How to activate Facebook account
After deactivation, you can activate your Facebook account by logging in with your credentials on the app or website.
How to delete Facebook account permanently
Again, you can delete Facebook account permanently via both app and web browser. A word of caution, this will wipe-off all your data, including photos, friends, and posts, from Facebook and there is no way to retrieve them. That said, you can backup Facebook account/ data before deleting it and the steps are listed below. So scroll down, follow those steps and then come back here to delete your Facebook account permanently.
- You can just go directly to Facebook.com/Settings to delete Facebook account permanently via app or browser
- Alternatively, go to ‘Settings’ –> ‘Your Facebook information’. App users will have to perform one additional step – tap on ‘Account Ownership and control’
- Select ‘Deactivation and Deletion’ and look for ‘Delete Account’ instead of ‘Deactivate’
- Click on ‘Continue to Account Deletion’
- Enter your password, the Facebook account will be deleted permanently
Facebook says, “when you delete your Facebook account, you won’t be able to retrieve the content or information you’ve shared on Facebook. Your Messenger and all of your messages will also be deleted.”
How to backup Facebook data
Looking for ways to backup your Facebook data before deleting it, follow the steps below
- Log in to your Facebook account and head to the Settings page
- Alternatively, go to ‘Settings & Preferences’. This will under the ‘hamburger’ icon on the app, while desktop users can look for it under ‘down’ icon next to your profile
- Select ‘Settings’ –> ‘Your Facebook information’ –> ‘Download your information’
- Click on ‘Create File’
You have the option to back up all your Facebook data or a portion of it like just the photos and videos, posts, comments, and likes. The data will be clubbed in a ZIP file, extract it using the tool of your choice. All the data will be in different subfolders. There will be an index.htm file as well that lets you surf the data using the offline version of Facebook that’s stored locally in your archive.