How to Deactivate or Delete Your Facebook Account

Sometimes, it's beneficial to step away from social media and focus on activities that make your time more meaningful and productive. Whether it's to escape the constant stream of content—both positive and negative—or simply to reset, taking a break can be refreshing. One effective way to do this is by deactivating or even permanently deleting your social media accounts.

Facebook, one of the most popular social media platforms today, is widely used by a large portion of the global population. While new users continue to join, many others are choosing to deactivate or delete their accounts in order to take a break and regain control over their time and mental space.

If you are using the Facebook mobile app, here’s how you can deactivate your account:

1. Launch the Facebook app.

2. Tap the gear icon on the upper right-hand side.

3. Tap Accounts Center.

4.  Under Account settings,  tap Personal details.

5. Tap Account ownership and control. Choose Deactivation or deletion.

6. If all your meta accounts (Facebook, Instagram) are linked to your Accounts Center, make sure to choose the account that you want to deactivate or delete.

Deactivating your account is only temporary, which means if you decide to return and use Facebook again, you can log in using your login credentials as usual. Deleting your profile is permanent and Facebook will only give you 30 days from the date you initiated deletion to retrieve your account.

Select which option you would like to proceed with: either Deactivate profile or Delete profile. Tap Continue.

8. Enter your Facebook account password. Tap Continue. 

9. Facebook would want to know why you want to deactivate your account. Pick a reason from the pre-set options or add one your own, and then tap Continue.

10. Facebook would not want you to go! So it will convince you one last time to choose to log out or remove some unwanted posts instead. However, if you have really decided to deactivate or delete, it will ask you if you want to reactivate your account after just a couple of days (options range from 1 to 7 days) or if you want to reactivate it only when you log in again. Choose an option and tap Continue. 

11. When you deactivate your Facebook account, your Messenger account will remain active. This means people you connect with through Facebook can still chat or send you a message through Messenger. 

Wait for the app to log you out of the app. The page will return to the log-in page.

EDIT: If you are using Facebook on a browser, it gets difficult to find the Delete/Deactivate option. Here's the direct link to the Delete/Deactivate page.