If you have decided to permanently leave Facebook, see what you need to do to completely delete yourself from the platform.
You have decided to leave Facebook!. What should you do? Deactivate or delete your account? What is each of these? Let's go see.
Deactivation
Deactivating your Facebook account will simply hide your data from your friends. It's like a temporary deletion and if someone tried to find you on the platform, they wouldn't see any trace of you. It could even claim that you never had an account there.
Your profile will not appear in search results and your status updates, photos and other data will disappear from public view. The only trace of your account that can remain visible is the inbox messages you sent to other people. Facebook also says that your picture may still be available in your friends' friend lists, but from what we've seen, that's probably not the case.
However, Facebook keeps your data legally. Which means you can reactivate your account at any time and pick up where you left off. All your friends, statuses, photos, videos and timeline content will be instantly available again.
Deactivating your account should only be used in certain circumstances. For example, you may want to stop social media for a month for whatever reason, or you may want to hide your life from a vengeful ex-partner until things calm down.
But if the reason is privacy then deactivating your Facebook account is the wrong decision.
Deletion
According to internal regulations of Facebook if you delete your account all your information will be gone forever. There is no way to recover the data and there is no way to reactivate your account at a later date. If you decide that you want to join the social network again, you will need to create a new account.
Facebook says it will delete almost all of your data from its servers. Once again, messages you've sent to other people will be kept in their inbox, and data such as logs will remain in Facebook's database, although all personal identifiers will be removed.
When you delete your account, Facebook gives you a cooling-off period. If you log back into your account within 30 days, it will be reactivated automatically. This means that if you're determined to delete Facebook for good, you'll need to stay off the platform for the time being.
Once the cooling-off period is over, Facebook promises to delete all traces of your profile from its servers within 90 days. But don't worry, during the 90 days, your data is not available to other Facebook users.
Now if he actually deletes them and doesn't keep them to himself, that's another matter.
How to permanently delete a Facebook account
Step 1 : Click on your profile icon > Settings & Privacy > Settings.
Step 2 : Tap on “Account Management Center” located at the top left of your screen.
Step 3 : Tap on Personal Information under Account Settings.
Step 4 : Tap on Ownership and account control.
Step 5 : Tap Disable or delete.
Step 6 : Select the account or profile you want to delete or disable.
Step 7 : Here you can choose between Deactivate or Delete Account. Select Delete.
Step 8 : Tap Continue and follow the instructions for confirmation
You may be asked to enter your password and confirm your decision.
CAUTION: Before permanently removing your Facebook account, there are a few steps you should take to make sure the process goes smoothly and you won't regret it later.
Download your Facebook data
Just because you've decided Facebook isn't right for you anymore, doesn't mean you have to ignore all the content you've accumulated there over the years.
Consider that for many of your photos, messages, and videos in your account, Facebook is probably the only copy of the file available, even if it's in low resolution. So before you grab the “Delete” button, you need to make sure you have one copy of your data.
To download all your personal data from Facebook, sign in to your account and go to Settings and privacy > Settings > Privacy > Your Facebook information > Download profile information.
You can choose which types of data you want to include. It ranges from the obvious (like photos and posts) to the more obscure (like the Wi-Fi networks you've used).
When you have made your selection, click on “Request Download” which is at the bottom of the page. Depending on the amount of data you want to download, it may take several hours for the file to be ready.
Check third-party apps
Many apps and services give you the option to sign in using your Facebook credentials.
We're not sure why anyone would choose this option but it has nothing to do with privacy. You are knowingly giving these companies access to all your Facebook data.
If you've used your Facebook login credentials for apps like Spotify or Feedly, you need to change your login details with them before Facebook permanently deletes your account. Failure to do so could result in you being locked out of your account.
You can see which apps have access to your Facebook account by going to Settings & privacy > Settings > Apps & websites.
Important: You must approach the third-party app developer directly, you cannot make the necessary changes through Facebook.
Tell your friends you're leaving Facebook
If you don't suddenly make the decision to leave and think about it for a long time, before you do you can change your profile picture to a picture that warns of your intentions and what will find you if you intend to stay with someone else from social media.
This way your friends will know that you intend to delete your Facebook account every time you appear on their timeline. You can even trim your friends list before posting your new information to prevent it from spreading too much.
Epilogue
Deleting your Facebook account is a big decision. It's not something you should do lightly. Make sure you really want to delete your account before committing. Remember, the process is irreversible after 30 days.
