How Do You Delete Your Facebook Account And Start From Scratch
Note: Some information in this post may be outdated. Please use this post as a guide only, not step-by-step instructions.
Earlier this year, I went through my Facebook Profile and read all the status updates and comments I have posted way back in 2006 when I first joined Facebook. Reading back 4+ years, I was really embarrassed in what some of the things I said. I wanted it gone and removed. I started deleting some things, but found it near impossible to delete all this information, so I asked myself “how do i delete my Facebook?”. From that point, I decided I should delete my Facebook account and start again from scratch. In doing so, their are a few things that you need watch out for to make the process clean and easy as Facebook makes it somewhat difficult to delete your profile. To help you out, I have put together this brief tutorial on how you can delete your Facebook account and start again.
By following this tutorial, you will be able to use your same email address, Facebook username, and password, but you will lose everything such as status updates, posts, comments, pictures and friends.
So how do you delete your Facebook account: Before You Begin
Before you being, I must stress, that you will lose all your friends you have and everyone will need to re-add you or re-confirm your friendship. Some people may or may not want to re-add you back as a friend on Facebook, so just be careful. I would also take note of all your friends you have to make it easier to remember who to add.
I would also tell your friends that you are deleting your account, so if they get another friend request from you, they will know it’s not a fake. Or they may ask you questions why you deleted them in the first place.
Update: If your account is the administrator of any groups, or pages, it is highly recommended that you assign someone else as an administrator of that page of group so when you delete your account, there will be someone that can reassign you as an admin (and so your page doesn’t get deleted). If you are the only admin for your page or group, get someone you trust to become an administrator temporarily.
I must also warn you that you complete these steps at your own risk, because you may lose important information such as your applications and games, ad’s, credits, and other important account information that is not covered in the scope of this tutorial. If you do run into trouble, contact me and I will try my best to help you out.
WARNING: FOLLOWING THESE STEPS WILL COMPLETELY WIPE YOUR FACEBOOK ACCOUNT DELETING ALL YOUR FRIENDS, POSTS, COMMENTS, APPS, GAME PROGRESS, FACEBOOK CREDITS. THERE IS NO WAY TO UNDO THIS ACTION!
Note: This method is only for deleting personal Facebook accounts. If you delete a page, it will be deleted straight away.
Step 1: Know The Difference Between Delete And Deactivate
It’s important to note the difference between the two, and I have previously written a post about the difference and how you go about the deleting and deactivating your account. In this tutorial, you are going to delete your account – but don’t do it just yet, just read and understand the difference.
Step 2: Backup Your Facebook Account
When I deleted my Facebook account, I didn’t have the option to backup and download my Facebook information. So before you delete your account (where everything you publish on Facebook will be lost forever), you are first going to backup your data. To do this, click on “learn more” in your Account Settings next to “Download your information”. You can access your Account Settings by visiting https://www.facebook.com/editaccount.php
You will then be presented a number of steps and security measures before you can download your profile.
Once you have downloaded your information, continue to Step 3.
Step 3: Change Your Email Address, Password, And Username
This is a crucial step, because if you don’t do this, you won’t be able to use Facebook for at least two weeks using the same login details. Back in your Account Settings, first of all, change your email address to another email address that you have. We are doing this, so you will be able to instantly signup with your same email address later on in Step 5. Also change your password and username. It is also important to do these so you can keep your original Facebook username (I.e. www.facebook.com/yourprofileusername) (See update below) and to stop other devices such as your mobile phone or laptop accidently logging in to your account and stopping the deletion process. Once you have done all this, continue to Step 4.
Update: A commenter mentioned, that there is a Facebook FAQ stating that usernames cannot be transferred between accounts, so the changing your username step may no longer work, so try this at your own risk.
Step 4: Delete Your Account
Now that you have backed up your profile, have changed your email address, password, username, and told your friends you are deleting your account, you can now finally go through the deletion process.
To delete your account, click on https://ssl.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account and follow the process. I won’t explain it step by step because I don’t want to delete my Facebook account. But it will take at least 2 weeks for it to be fully deleted. Do make sure you read each step carefully.
Step 5: Sign Back Up To Facebook
Now it’s time to sign back up to Facebook. You should be able to simply register your account using your original email address and password because we changed it in Step 3. Once you have confirmed your account, you can follow Facebook’s basic instructions, re-add the information to your Wall and Profile and re-add all your friends.
Just a tip, you may not be able to register your username straight away. It took me a couple of weeks before I could re-register my old username.
Step 6: You’re Done
So once you have added all your friends again, you have now successfully started your Facebook account from scratch. You may have thought the question “how to delete my Facebook account” isn’t so hard after all. All you had to do is follow the right procedure to crate a new Facebook account. For some further reading, you may want to read how I protect my personal and online identity so people like future employers don’t read the naughty things you get up to. Another thing I regularly do is delete any status updates and comments I post, so I don’t have to do this again in another 4 years. If I maintain it now, it makes it easier later on.
If you need some assistance on how do you delete your facebook account, I am happy to help you out. Just leave your message in the comments.
Please i need some help.A couple of months a go i`ve deleted my Facebook account and saved a backup in my computer.Now i want to use it.How can i use it ? i have the archive but i don`t know where to upload it.
When you download a Facebook data, that’s all you do – to have a copy of it on your own computer. Once you delete your account, you can’t upload the data you downloaded.
dekete ny account now !
[quote]Please i need some help.A couple of months a go i`ve deleted my Facebook account and saved a backup in my computer.Now i want to use it.How can i use it ? i have the archive but i don`t know where to upload it.[/quote]
When you download a Facebook data, that’s all you do – to have a copy of it on your own computer. Once you delete your account, you can’t upload the data you downloaded.
[quote]Hey, if I delete my facebook, does that also remove all the “Like’s” on pictures that I have liked in the past? Or will it still show up that I have liked that picture[/quote]
No, it removes all likes – it will be like you never joined Facebook before.
[b]HELP!!![/b] I’ve followed all the steps and tried to do step five and sign back up but when I tried it
told me my account will be deleted within two weeks and wouldn’t let me sign back up. what does this mean?! what do I do now?!
plleease help! thanx…
Did you ensure you changed your email address and removed any other related email address in your account before you deleted it?
You may be able to cancel the deletion and try again.
can i make another account using the same email or number after i delet my former account?
Is, if you delete it from your account before you delete your old account.
how to delete everything all facebook page .and start all over to facebook .i have three or four facebook page i cannot rememeber the other email i just want one facebook page. 🙁 this is my lose one every minute i change email.i want one please me .
thanks you
[i]Edited: Removed email addresses[/i]
Just perform the above steps on all accounts you don’t want. I suggest you only have one Facebook account because it’s against Facebook’s Terms of Service to use multiple Facebook accounts.
Hi Jack,
Great job on the instructions, just wondering…
1. My Facebook username was myfullname but this was the default name assigned tome I assume because as I understand it you can only change your profile name once and I was able to change it from myfullname to myfullname.123.
I have set up my new account and I am wanting to register my profile name as myfullname do we know if anyone has managed to do this recently? I have business cards with my Facebook profile name on it…. Very annoying.
Hi,
Unfortunately, after writing this post, you used to be able to change usernames, however, Facebook has since changed the policy. Please see this comment of mine.
[url=”http://www.jackcola.org/blog/123-how-to-delete-and-start-your-facebook-from-scratch#kmt-657″]http://www.jackcola.org/blog/123-how-to-delete-and-start-your-facebook-from-scratch#kmt-657[/url]
I will update the original post now.
Since you have printed business cards, this may be a problem. If you can’t get your old username back, you may have to change it. If you have a domain name, you might want to put yourname.com as your facebook username, and manually write .com on your business cards. Not professional, but it’s a solution.
I also suggest (if it’s possible for your situation), you think about setting up a Page for yourself on Facebook – like I have done at http://facebook.com/jackcola.org
hello jack i like your website its great.i want to ask you that i deleted old email from facebook and added new one but i can access facebook from old email but i want to block to access facebook by old email plz tell me if you have any idea????
You need to add a new email address before you can delete the old one. Make sure you set the new email address as the primary email, and then delete the old one.
Let me know how you go. Check Facebook –> Account Settings –> Email (click edit) to see what email address you have on your Facebook account.
Hi there! So I made an account a while ago, since I deactivated and forgot the password to my original. I would like to delete this new account now and start fresh with it, and I was wondering how long it takes to validate an email address to change it.
Thanks!
Hi,
Validating email addresses should happen instantly, provided you click on the link to approve the new email address. You can recover your Facebook account [url=”http://www.facebook.com/recover/initiate”]here[/url].
hello , thankyou for the great help, im just wondering.. i want to make a whole new profile and delete my old one, wipe the slate clean if u will. but is it possible to take a few of your pictures from ur old profile and transfer them onto your new one?
You will have to re-upload them. If you download your account data, you will be able to easily manually upload them again.
You said it takes 2 weeks for facebook to fully delete your account. Does that mean you can’t make a new account during that time? Or can you make your new account as soon as you’ve deleted the old one?
I scrolled through the comments and read you don’t have to wait two weeks. Sorry for asking you to repeat yourself!
Facebook accounts are based on email address. If you remove the old email address, you can signup with the new email address. However, the account will still go through the 2 weeks deletion process, it’s just that you can create a new facebook account with the old email address.
JACK C0LA WILL MY MSGS WILL DELETE F0RVER
Likely answer is no. The message could have been saved by the recipient (screenshot, copy/paste), or notified by email and stored in someone’s inbox.
Facebook itself may have an offline version of the message and may be able to produce it if required by law.
Hi,
Just wanted to ask if you knew why after deleting my facebook account i did not receive a confirmation email to my email address It is definitley deleted because i went back to try and log in and it says account is scheduled for deletion on 19th of Jan.
No, not sure why. Usually you would have to approve it via email. Are you sure it is the primary email address associated with your Facebook account?
that was really good but you see i was on facebook and i clicked on this link that gives you viruses and keeps you spamming without you doing so. But i clicked on it cause i didn’t know what it was cause the link was: we’re giving out free ipads and another link was why did you do this to me and where did you get the pictures from and all those links so i pressed on one of them and then the next day i wasn’t even on facebook but when i logged back on i had all these statuses FROM ME when i didn’t even do nothing i thought i was hacked but i wasn’t cause one of my friends messaged me that day and asked if i pressed on those links i said yes and she said those links are fake and it gives you viruses and lets you spam without you doing anything and then i knew it and now the problem is i don’t know how to erase that link and stop the spamming. I deactivated my facebook account today cause it started yesterday night and i don’t know if it stopped or not but if the spamming of the link doesn’t stop i guess i’ll have to delete my facebook completely but the thing is i don’t want to delete my facebook because i don’t want to erase all of the information and all my friends so can you help me and find a way to stop the spamming? cause it’s really annoying and like all my friends thinks it’s annoying too so if you can email me at my email: joycegao6@gmail.com THANK YOU, JOYCE
There will be an app that will be spamming you. Just go to your Facebook app settings and remove Apps you don’t use http://lifehacker.com/5904590/clean-out-your-facebook-app-permissions-as-part-of-your-spring-cleaning-regimen
step 6: you’re* done
How awkward. It’s fixed now. Thanks for letting me know.
how can i delete my conversation what i wrote from the inbox of the other facebook account
Facebook does not allow this functionality.
I want to re register a new and clean email add and password by alternating or omitting the old existing email add
Just sign up to a new Gmail, Hotmail account, or add an alias onto your account.
Thank you 🙂
hello if i delete my facebook and wait the 2 weeks will my msg b deleted from the other persons inbox i want it to be like i never had facebook
No, it will stay in the users inbox, but be from the user “Unknown”
il mio account non Çù accendere
Do you know if sent messages will be deleted after you permanently delete your facebook?
They will still be available with the precipitant.
Can someone please help for some reason my facebook page has gone and i haven’t deleted this page when a friend tries and gets onto my page it says that this link my have been broken or page has been deleted….what is going on or who do i contact to sort this for me
Are there other page admins that have access to it? Did the page break Facebook’s TOC? There is no reference to the page when logged into Facebook? Let me know.
Hi, may i know once i deleted my account all my previous comments on other people side will be gone as well ?
Yep, that’s correct. However, private messages may still exist, and if someone has their Facebook account to send email notifications, those notifications will still exist.
Does deleting my facebook acc. deletes all my messages too? Will my friends not be able to view them anymore?
Your messages should still be in your friends inboxes so they will be able to see them still, yes. However it won’t show as from you, it’ll simply say from “unknown”