Thinking of taking a break from social media so you can focus on other important things in your life? In this guide, you’re going to learn how to deactivate Facebook in 2024. Note that deactivating is different from deleting your account. The former only temporarily disables your account and you can easily get it back while the letter removes it permanently.
In this tech talk, we’ll teach you how to do both. You’ll also learn how to deactivate Facebook on iPhone or Android. Let’s get started!
Table of Contents
How to Deactivate Facebook Account on Desktop
Deactivating your Facebook isn’t as simple as it used to be. To deactivate your Facebook account on desktop, follow the steps below:
- After logging into your Facebook account, click on your profile icon in the top-right corner.
- Navigate to Settings & Privacy > Settings.
- In the top-left of the Settings menu, you’ll see Accounts Center. Click on See more in Accounts Center.
- Now go to Personal Details > Account ownership and control.
- Click on Deactivation or deletion.
- Select the Meta profile which you want to deactivate.
- Select Deactivate Account and then click on Continue.
- A warning message will pop up, letting you know that you’ll lose access to your Oculus account once you’ve deactivated your Facebook. Click on Continue.
- Enter your Facebook password and click on Continue one last time to deactivate your account.
Once your Facebook account has been deactivated, other people won’t be able to see your timeline or search for your profile. You’ll also lose access to Meta Quest products (which means you won’t be able to play any VR games on the Quest headset unless you have a separate Meta account). Note, however, that people will still be able to see the conversations they’ve had with you on Messenger.
To reactivate your deactivated Facebook account, just log in like you normally would and it’ll start working.
How to Deactivate Facebook on a Phone (iPhone or Android)
The deactivation process is the same on smartphones as it is on desktop. Here’s how to do it:
- Tap Menu in the bottom-right corner (the three vertical lines).
- Scroll down and head to Settings & Privacy > Settings.
- Tap See more in Accounts Center.
- Under “Account settings,” tap Personal details.
- Now navigate to Account ownership and control > Deactivation or deletion.
- Choose the profile you want to deactivate.
- Tap Deactivate account and then tap Continue.
- Enter the password to your Facebook account to deactivate it.
How to Delete a Facebook Account
To delete FB account permanently from mobile or desktop, follow the steps outlined above, but when you get to the “Account ownership and control” menu and have chosen the profile you want to delete, tap Delete account instead of Deactivate account.
Difference Between Deactivating and Deleting a Facebook Account
As mentioned above, deactivating your Facebook account means you’re temporarily disabling it and can easily regain access by logging back in whenever you want. Deleting means you’ll lose the account permanently and won’t be able to log back in.
Once you’ve requested to delete your account, it may take a few days for the process to be completed. During this time, you can log back in and cancel your deletion request. This is the only time when disabled Facebook account recovery is possible. Your log records will remain in Facebook’s database, but they won’t be associated with any personal identifiers anymore.
Some of your messages may still be visible to other people even after you’ve deleted your Facebook account. Deleting it will also remove your app purchases and achievements if you use the same account to log into Meta Quest.
Note that if you are digital creator on Facebook, then it’ll be affected if you choose to delete or deactivate your account.
The good news, however, is that the Facebook settlement payout won’t be affected by it. As long as you were active during the “Class Period,” it won’t matter if you deactivate your account now.
Ready to Take a Break from Facebook?
In this tech talk, we showed you how you can deactivate Facebook in 2024 on both desktop and phones. The social media platform has updated its settings, so you will no longer find the option to deactivate your profile through the Facebook settings menu.
You now have to go to the Accounts Center menu to deactivate or delete your Facebook account. It’s a quick process. We also looked at how to reactivate Facebook account after you have deactivated it. All you have to do is log back in using your credentials. If you decide to delete your Facebook, however, keep in mind that you won’t be able to reactivate your account or retrieve any of your data once the deletion process is complete.
Frequently Asked Questions
No, deactivating temporarily disables your Facebook account and you reactivate it by logging back in, but deleting permanently removes your account and all associated data from Facebook’s servers.
Yes, you can still use Messenger without Facebook as deactivating it doesn’t have the same effect on your Messenger account. In fact, using the Messenger app won’t even reactivate your Facebook account and you’ll still be able to talk to your friends.
To enable dark mode on Facebook on the iPhone, go to Settings & Privacy > Settings, scroll down and tap Dark mode under the “Preferences” section. Tap On to always have dark mode on or System to use your device’s system settings for dark mode.
Whether you should delete or deactivate your Facebook account is up to you. The former will permanently delete your profile, so if you’re not completely sure about leaving Facebook, then we recommend deactivating it first to see if a break from the platform suits you.
