If you’re at all familiar with Twitter Accounts, chances are you’ve also heard that deleting your account is a pretty difficult process (there are even entire websites devoted to helping people who want to get off of Twitter). But it doesn’t have to be! Here’s how to delete your Twitter account in five easy steps, without getting lost in the process along the way.
1) Read this first
If you’re considering deleting your account, there are some things you should know first. If you use Twitter for business purposes, it might not be a good idea for you to deactivate or delete your account just yet. Check out our resource on taking a social media break. Before you permanently delete your account, read through our other resources on deleting personal accounts. Also, read our privacy policy before removing content from Twitter.
Finally, here are more resources about getting started with Twitter and using Twitter if English isn’t your primary language. You may also want to check out these resources if you have an email address associated with your account. How do I disconnect my email address from my Twitter account? How do I disconnect my phone number from my Twitter account? I disconnect my Google Voice number from my Twitter account.
2) Determine if you are ready
Are you sure you’re ready to delete your account? If you are, read on. But if not, there’s no shame in waiting a while—Twitter is a big place and your name or tweets may become less prominent over time. You can always come back and delete it later. Plus, it will allow you a little more time to resolve any account disputes with friends, family, or co-workers who are still using Twitter.
If that is an issue for you, we recommend taking some time off from Twitter (you can turn off notifications) and then closing your account without deleting it. This way, when you return, your followers won’t have missed anything important. You’ll also be able to follow along with them as they continue their social media journey. The bottom line: There is no need to rush into deleting your account. Take your time and do what feels right for you!
3) Log into your account
Deactivating your account requires you to log into your Twitter account and navigate to settings. Once there, it’s as simple as clicking Deactivate my account and confirming your decision. If you have any information that you want to retain from your account after deletion, now is a good time to download it.
Depending on how long ago you created your account, you can request all of your historical tweets or just send them an email asking for all of them. They won’t be able to send everything, but they will do their best. While logged in, you can also remove all of your personal information by going to Settings -> Privacy and Safety -> Edit Profile -> Remove Personal Information.
This includes things like removing your profile picture, changing your username (if applicable), editing location info, and removing phone numbers from appearing with each tweet. You should also go through each app connected to your account (if applicable) and revoke access to those services as well. Finally, if you still have followers who are not following back or are otherwise inactive accounts, consider unfollowing them so that they don’t see a notification when you deactivate/delete your account. While logged in, go to Settings -> Following and select Unfollow everyone followed by Unfollow specific people (you’ll need their @handle).
4) Go through the verification process
Before you delete your account, make sure you’ve gone through and verified your email address and phone number. This makes it much harder for them to come along and use them. If someone gets a hold of that information, they’ll still have no way of logging into your account, meaning they can’t take it over and do anything nefarious with it. So make sure you’re signed up on there properly before you proceed with the deletion. And if you haven’t already done so, follow these steps to verify your account.
Once you’ve done that… Make sure all of your contacts are safe: Next, go ahead and check to see who you’re following on Twitter. This will help ensure that any other accounts you interact with are also safe once you close out your profile. You may even want to go ahead and unfollow anyone who isn’t actually providing value—that’s especially true. If they just started following you recently or have never engaged with your tweets at all. Go through each one individually until you feel confident everyone is fine (or cut ties altogether). That includes celebrities too!
5) Sign out for good
Once you’ve created your account, you might feel that you want a way to sign back in at a later date. Don’t. Once you sign out of your account, it’s gone forever. Even if someone managed to download everything from an archived version of Twitter, all they would find is a ton of information about other people and businesses—not anything about you personally or what was going on with your personal life.
The most obvious reason for deleting an account is because you don’t want it anymore (and have no need for what it has stored). But sometimes people actually get hacked and another person will take over their account by changing their email address. If you think that might be happening to you, then delete your account immediately. It’s better to be safe than sorry! When you delete your account, any content associated with it—including photos and videos that were uploaded to Twitter—will also be deleted permanently.
So make sure you’re not saving any photos on there that are irreplaceable before signing off for good. And if anyone ever sends you something important via direct message, just tell them to re-send it after you’ve signed off. They can make sure they’re sending it to your new email address instead of whatever random one is still connected to your account. One thing’s for sure: After deleting your Twitter account, nobody will even know who you are again. Good luck starting fresh!
The CEO wants his name changed in every single employee manual/document he signed during his first week as CEO.