How to deactivate or 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 security breach of 30 million accounts has made up your mind, follow along for how to deactivate or delete your Facebook account, or dial in your privacy settings.

[Updated: 10/17/2018]

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.

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. You can do any of these options on iPhone and iPad as well as the web.

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.

How to deactivate or delete your Facebook account

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 & Privacy, then Account Settings
Swipe down again and choose Account Ownership and Control
Tap Deactivation and Deletion

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 on the web

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 & Privacy, then Privacy Shortcuts
Go through the following privacy settings to adjust them to your liking

Follow along with the images below for more help:

For more help getting the most out of your Apple devices, check out our how to guide as well as the following articles:

Check out 9to5Mac on YouTube for more Apple news:

About the Author

Michael Potuck

@michaelpotuck

Michael is an editor for 9to5Mac, 9to5Google, and Electrek. You’ll find most of his writing on 9to5Mac where he covers news, reviews, how-tos, and more.