Jack's Blog:
How Do You Delete Your Facebook Account And Start From Scratch
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.
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Comments (237)
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Hi Rachael,<br />By following the above method, all your photo's will be removed. There are some Firefox extensions that can mass save your photo's, or you can download your Facebook profile as a backup.<br /><br />But if you go ahead with this, all your information will be deleted from Facebook.
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Rachel,
I just found a tool online that allowed me to download all my facebook pics to my computer. I won't share the name (just want to respect the host of this website and not promote outside services). Just go online and search for tools, there out there.
Good luck.0 Like -
There's nothing physically stopping you creating another Facebook account and leaving the old one their, but why would you if you are going to delete what you don't want anyway. The idea of this post is to save you time and ensuring your delete everything.<br /><br />If you don't want your old work colleagues getting updates, then put them in a list, and make sure that list doesn't have access to your wall posts - it's that simple.
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IT SAYS I HAVE TO RENAME IT TO PHONE #..DO U MEAN RENAME ACCOUNT OR USER NAME? I DID CHANGE EMAIL & PASSWORD EXCEPT THAT ONE..I GOT PROFILE DOWNLOAD TOO..THEN I DEACTIVATE..NOTHING HAPPEN ..SAMO PAGE..THEN I CLICKED DELETE ACCOUNT & IT SAYS TAKES 2 WEEKS TO DO SO..BUT I CAN STILL GO ON??? SO AFTER 2 WEEKS & ITS DELETED CAN I STILL LOG ON TO THAT NAME WITH MY NEW PASS & EMAIL??? OR DID I LOSE EVERTHING???WHY DO I NEED THE PROFILE DOWNLOAD U NEVER SAID..THAT I SAW????PLEASE HELP ME I LIKE TO CLEAR ALL MY POSTS OUT & EMAILS & 1500 FREINDS THATS WHY IM DOING THIS..THANKS...
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Hi,<br />First of all, if you want more assistance, don't write in caps, and try to write in a more logical manner.<br /><br />It says change your email address, password and account username, so you don't accidently login within the 2 week period, and so you can create another account using those details. Because if you don't change it, it will come up with an error saying your email address is already in used, so you would have to wait 2 weeks before you can use Facebook.<br /><br />So if you change your email address, password, username, you can recreate another Facebook account and still use Facebook from a new account.<br /><br />If you logon with your old account details, you'll stop and reset the deletion process.<br /><br />By doing these steps, you WILL lose everything, and you WILL start from scratch.
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After you start the download, it says you will recieve an email when it was ready.. How long did that take for you to get the email? Its been standing idle for probably 30 mins now and it says "Pending" on facebook and I dont have an email yet. Should i retry? or just wait?
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Hi Kristen,<br />That depends how much information you have on your Facebook account. For example, if you have 1000 photo's and status updates for 3-4 years, it will take much longer than someone with an account just started and only a few photo's.<br /><br />If you don't get one in a day, make sure you check your spam box, or try and re-download your information again.<br /><br />But it is a behind the scene process, so you don't have to wait on the screen.
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You should still be able to if your phone has a web browser (not through the Facebook application).<br /><br />Just visit [url]https://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account[/url] on your phone's web browser and follow the prompts to delete your Facebook account.<br /><br />But Facebook makes it hard to delete your account because they don't want you to delete it.
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It was very helpful thank you very much <br />P.S can you please provide how to hide friends and this stuff like example no one can write on wall , and no one can see the wall post somehting like How I Protect My Personal and Online Identity , but for visibility <br />again thank you very much
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Hi,<br /><br />Facebook provides all this information to you, but I do see it can be quite annoying. With the new Privacy Changes Facebook has only introduced in the last few days, you can specifically write posts that go to different friend lists.<br /><br />Put all these settings can be done in the privacy section on Facebook here http://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=privacy
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I would think most of the above steps would work. The only thing I have doubt on is whether or not you can get the same username as I could before.<br /><br />But if someone does these steps, please let me know, and others the outcome - I don't have a FB account I want to start from scratch again, so I can't really test it.
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Sorry, but I think you are out of luck.<br /><br />The only way I know of (apart from doing the above) is to one by one delete every comment and status update.<br /><br />There might be an app that does it for you, but I doubt it - I would have heard of it by now, plus Facebook would probably block it anyway.
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Hi Jack,<br /><br />This is a good option.. I realized something however, is that even though you delete your Private Messages you have with someone, I did a test and it doesn't delete the Private Messages on their end. So, if you did write something to them, that you don't want someone to find out, how do you know your employer or anyone still won't see that message?<br />(I guess make sure your User name is changed before deleting your account?) <br />I searched on Google of my Facebook username and it showed up for groups I have commented on.... anyway to get around this and make sure it doesn't show on Google? Is there something in private settings you know about?? <br /><br />Thanks.
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I Mandy,<br /><br />You have to be careful on what you type on Facebook, because even after you delete your account, although Facebook claims they delete your data (whether they do or just hide it), there are still copies floating around somewhere.<br /><br />For example, if you post something on my Facebook wall, or respond on a thread I've commented on, what you type will be delivered directly to my email inbox, and even if you delete the comment 2 seconds after, I've received it, and can read it when I check my emails.<br /><br />So if you don't want anyone reading what you say to someone, don't say it - call them on the phone, meet with them in person, or don't use Facebook.<br /><br />There is a Facebook setting privacy setting in Apps and Websites --> Public Search which you can turn off.<br /><br />But you have to be careful commenting on public groups and pages, because anyone can see it.<br /><br />If you answer a Poll question on Facebook, anyone who see's that poll will be able to see your name. Any comment you write on a page, all other people who go to that page can read your comment - so you have to really be careful where you write comments on Facebook. Even if you write a comment on a friends status update. If their profile settings is set to public, everyone can see what you have written. And since they are friends with you, your boss can use the "See Friendship" feature on Facebook and see all your messages between you and that other person.
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