How to Deactivate Facebook Account and Page

In this post, I want to teach you two important things as regards your Facebook account. I want to teach you how to deactivate you Facebook account and how to delete you Facebook account completely.

As much as Facebook is a great tool with several advantages, yet there are times some strict decisions must be taken. There are times that you will be faced with reasons to either delete it entirely from your phone or deactivate if temporarily. Whichever one you want to do, this post provides a step by step guide for you.

How to Deactivate Facebook

Let me start by showing you how you can deactivate Facebook temporarily. While I was in the university, I was faced with a serious issue that led to deactivating the social media for a while. I was preparing for my examination and discovered that Facebook posed a very strong distraction to me. Hence, deactivating it was the only option I was left with.  

With this in mind, there could be other reasons why you will need to deactivate Facebook for a season. You can deactivate your account temporarily and choose to come back whenever you want.

To learn how to deactivate your Facebook account, follow the following steps. These steps will work fine for Facebook messenger, Facebook lite and the web version.

STEP 1: LOGIN TO YOUR ACCOUNT

The first step on how to deactivate Facebook is to log into the affected account. You cannot carry out any activity on any account without first of all logging into it. To do this, it is better you use the same device you use to access your Facebook. The security of Facebook has become stronger than it was before. As such, logging in with a new device may not be so easy. This is why you should stick to one device. So if you have not logged out Facebook on that device, then you are good to go. But if you logged out, the first thing to do is to login again.

STEP 2: CLICK ON THE DROP-DOWN ICON

The drop-down icon is located at the topmost right corner on your profile page. This is the shape of the drop-down icon 

STEP 3: GO TO SETTINGS AND PRIVACY

Having clicked on the drop-down icon, several options are displayed. Click on settings and privacy option.

STEP 3: CLICK ON PRIVACY SHORTCUT

From there, you then click on privacy shortcut. You must be careful here to observe that there are two privacy options on Facebook. The first is privacy checkup and the second is privacy shortcut. Click on the privacy shortcut option.

STEP 4: CLICK ON YOUR FACEBOOK INFORMATION

From the left side bar choose the fourth option which your Facebook Information or you keep scrolling down till you see the subheading titled Your Facebook information. On the Your Facebook Information, the last option is delete your account and information.

STEP 5: CLICK ON DELETE ACCOUNT AND INFORMATION

From there, you can then choose either to delete the account or deactivate it. This is just the simple guide on how to deactivate your Facebook and how to delete your Facebook.

When you click on deactivate account option, it leads you to a page where you input your password. The reason why your password is required is to be sure that you are the owner of the account. Seeing that in recent time, several Facebook accounts have been hacked. This is why Facebook wants to make sure that someone is not deleting your account on your behalf. If you input your password, then you click on continue and from there you are good to go.

But then, before you go ahead to deactivate your ensure you download all your information. This will help you not lose your information as you deactivate your account.

To delete your account, you must first delete all the pages you manage on the account. To do this, click on delete account. Facebook by default will select your pages one by one for deletion. For each of those pages, you must input your password and then click on continue. If you manage more than one page, then you will have do this one after the other. When you might have finished deleting all your pages, then you can go ahead to delete your account permanently.

When you deactivate your Facebook account, the following will happen

1. No one will be able to see your profile again. You have deactivated it meaning that your account has now become inactive. As such, you tend to lose every connection and information you have on it. This is why you should download your information first before deactivating or deleting your account.

2. Information like messages you sent to friends may still be visible. But then, as much as they are visible, you cannot send messages to anyone and you will not be able to access messages sent by friends. But then, deactivating Facebook does not automatically deactivate messenger. As such, you can still chat and interact with friends on messenger.  
3. Your name will still appear on the friend list of your friends. This is because you deactivated the account, not deleted.
4. You will no longer appear in search results. People who are not your friends will not be able to see you in their search results or people you may know. Although your friends will still see you, but conversations with them will no longer be possible. 
5. Pages that only you control will also be deactivated. If you are the sole admin of some pages on Facebook, once you deactivate your account, those pages will also be deactivated. This means that people will no longer be able to see your pages. As such, you tend to lose all the information on those pages. But to avoid this, ensure you make someone else an admin of the page and give him full control over the page.

How to deactivate Facebook messenger account

Deactivating your Facebook does not affect your messenger. But to deactivate your messenger, you must first deactivate your Facebook and then follow the steps below. Keep in mind that you have to deactivate your Facebook account in order to see the option to deactivate your Messenger account. These steps are the same for every messenger enabled devices like android, iPhone, iPad etc.

1. From Chats, tap your profile picture in the top left corner.
2. Click on Legal & Policies.
3. Tap Deactivate Messenger.
4. Tap Deactivate.

When you delete your Facebook account, the following will happen:

1. You won’t be able to reactivate your account: Deleting your account permanently makes you lose every information completely. You will not be able to reactivate it again. If you deactivate your account, you will be able to reactivate it at any time you want. But if you delete it permanently, it remains deleted.
2. If you do not download your information such as, your profile, photos, posts, videos, and everything else you’ve added will be permanently deleted. When this happens, you will not be able to retrieve them again.
3. Whereas deactivating your Facebook does not fully deactivate your messenger, deleting your Facebook will completely affect your messenger. You will not be able to use Facebook Messenger anymore.
4. There are several apps that you can login using your Facebook login details. Upon deletion of your account, this privilege will be withdrawn. You will not be able to login to any of such services again with your Facebook details. When this happens, you will need to contact the apps and websites to recover those accounts.
5. Some information, like messages you sent to friends, may still be visible to them after you delete your account. But they will no longer be visible to you. As much as your messages will still be visible to your friends, yet there will be no room for new chats again.
6. Your pages will also be deleted. If you don’t want your Page to be deleted, you can give someone else full control of your Page.

Having initiated the deletion process for your account, you can still cancel the request within 30 days. This means that after the 30 days and you do not request for the cancellation of the account, then you cannot reverse it.

CONCLUSION

This is a short, simple but detailed guide on how to deactivate Facebook and how to delete Facebook. After deactivating Facebook, you can still reactivate it by just logging in with your device and you will be able to continue from where you stopped.

But in deleting Facebook, you must be careful not to do that carelessly and thoughtlessly.