What To Do Before Deleting Your Facebook

Why I Decided to Delete my Facebook Account

After taking some time off of social media & researching safety concerns regarding posting photos of my kids online, I decided that I wanted a completely clean slate with Facebook. I did still want to use Facebook to manage my Suzy Collins Photography business page, manage a few groups that I facilitate like my Digital Photography 101 online course community group, and sell/buy on Facebook Marketplace, duh. But before I completely deleted the Facebook profile I had for about 15 years, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t leaving anything important behind. 

Checklist Before Deleting Your Facebook Account

Here is a checklist to go over before you completely delete your Facebook for good and/or start a new one as a blank canvas. These are all of the things I did before deleting my original Facebook page and creating my new, very simple profile. 

1. Download all of your info

If you’re like me and your Facebook has served as a time capsule of sorts for life, you might be worried about losing memories & photos like I was. But, currently, Facebook has provided a way for you to download ALL of the information from your profile in one click & they’ll send you a zip file with everythinggg on it. (You can also do this with Instagram!) This feature was only added in September of 2020 and may not last forever, so I would do it while you can.

How: Click the carrot drop down in the top right corner > click Settings & Privacy > click Settings > click Your Facebook Information > Click Download Your Information. Or, you can choose to Transfer a Copy of Your Information to Google Photos or Dropbox.

This blog by Claire Rodahaver provides a more detailed description of how to do it with photos if you need more help. She also has a similar blog on how to do so for Instagram, here.

2. Double check where you use Facebook as a login.

This step is important if you’ve ever created an account on another platform of any kind by using your Facebook information as your login. If you’re not quite sure where you might have done this, here’s how you can double check all in one place.

How: You can check which apps you’re connected to through Facebook by going to the carrot drop down arrow in the top right > Settings & Privacy > Settings > Apps & Websites. Then you can use that list as a checklist of apps to change your logins for. Make sure to change your log in information on all of the apps you want to keep access to so you won’t be locked out of other accounts where you used Facebook as your method of logging in. 

3. Create a new Facebook profile. (If you want.)

I did this because I still wanted to utilize Facebook for a specific set of reasons without being distracted by a million irrelevant notifications and have a clean slate for what information was available about me on Facebook.

4. Transfer ownership of any business pages or groups to your new profile.

I wanted a new Facebook profile for a limited set of purposes, so once I created the new one, I transferred the admin settings from my old account to my new one so that I wouldn’t lose access to any pages or groups that I owned.

5. Take a look at any friends’ birthdays you might want to remember.

This is just for fun! You’ll no longer be prompted by Facebook that it’s your friend’s birthday, so if there’s any you want to add to your calendar, go ahead and do so. 🙂

How: Go to Birthdays under Events tab.

Now, you’re ready - go ahead and DELETE (not deactivate) your account.

How: Go to Settings & Privacy > Settings > Your Facebook Information > Deactivation and deletion. Choose deletion to permanently delete your profile. 

Take a deep breath. Facebook isn’t all bad or all good, but you can feel confident in deciding what is most healthy for you in this season. I think it’s normal for this to cause some level of anxiety even if you feel like it’s the best choice! If you choose to delete your Facebook like I did, I hope you find it freeing and beneficial!

xo

Want to learn with me as I learn about online photo safety? You might enjoy some of these other blogs.