How to deactivate/delete your Facebook account or change privacy settings on iPhone

- Mar. 20th 2018 2:20 pm PT

Whether you’ve been considering changing how you use Facebook for a while or the latest news about how the social media service has shared user data has caused some concerns, there are some easy ways make some adjustments. Follow along for how to deactivate or delete your account, or dial in your privacy settings.

Whoosh! Screen Cleaner

There are a few options when it comes to changing how you use Facebook. First, you can adjust and tighten up your security and privacy settings if you’d like to continue using the platform, but have some concerns.

Alternately, you can use the temporary or semi-permanent option of deactivating your account, which doesn’t fully delete it.

Lastly, you can opt to permanently delete your Facebook account. We’ll take a look at how to accomplish all three below, skip to whichever section you’d like if you’re confident about what you’d like to do.

How to deactivate your Facebook account (reversible)

Launch the Facebook iOS app and tap on the hamburger icon (three lines) in the bottom right corner
Swipe down to the bottom and tap on Settings and then Account Settings
Tap on General then Manage Account
Next to Account tap on Deactivate
Enter your password and read over the details that deactivating your account entails, and share why you’re doing so
Tap Deactivate at the bottom

Here’s what this process looks like:

Here’s how Facebook describes deactivating an account:

If you deactivate, your account your profile won’t be visible to other people on Facebook and people won’t be able to search for you. Some information, such as messages you sent to friends, may still be visible to others.

Read more on this on Facebook’s help page. Also see more on the difference between deactivating and deleting here.

How to permanently delete your Facebook account

Since deleting your account is not reversible, you may want to download a copy of your Facebook data. See Facebook’s help page on that here. When you’re ready to delete your account follow along below.

On iPhone, launch Safari or your browser of choice
Visit https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account
Login in with your credentials if needed
Click Delete My Account
Follow the prompts to permanently delete your account

Here are a few more important details on what deleting your account entails:

When you delete your account, people won’t be able to see it on Facebook. It may take up to 90 days from the beginning of the deletion process to delete all of the things you’ve posted, like your photos, status updates or other data stored in backup systems. While we are deleting this information, it is inaccessible to other people using Facebook.

How to change your Facebook privacy settings

Open the Facebook iOS app
Tap on the hamburger icon (three lines) in the bottom right corner
Swipe down to the bottom and tap on Settings and then Account Settings
Next tap on Privacy
Go through each category and double-check how you’d like to configure your privacy settings

You can also make use of Facebook’s suggested “Check a few important settings” feature that will appear at the top, the “Privacy Checkup” feature and also learn more with the Privacy Basics tutorial, all shown at the top of privacy settings (see below).

Follow along with the walkthrough images below for more help: