How to Delete Your Online Accounts but Keep Your Details
One of the things I love to do from time to time, especially at this time of year, is to start over . I’ll think about all the services I signed up for but don’t really use. By reviewing and deleting them, I feel better about my digital sprawl, and this is a practice I recommend everyone to try regularly.
Consumer Reports recently published an excellent guide that shows you the basic steps to delete your accounts on 15 different services. While the process isn’t usually that hard, it can be frustrating to root through the many settings menus and hyperlinks to figure out how to remove yourself from the service. I have bookmarked a series of steps on the site and recommend that you do the same, but with one caveat.
While the Consumer Reports list is helpful, it leaves out one important aspect of the account deletion process that you probably want to know about: how to save data from a site before deleting an account. In some cases, it doesn’t matter – for example, if you hack a spoof Twitter account. If you want to delete something more substantial, like your old Blogger account, you probably don’t want those memories to disappear digitally.
Blogger
Back up your data: On the home page of your blog, click the Settings icon and then Other. Click the Back Up Content button to start creating the .XML archive.
Deleting your data: On the same page where you backed up your blog, click on the “Delete blog” link to say goodbye to your blog forever.
Data backup. Click the drop-down arrow in the upper right corner of Facebook and select Settings. Click on ” Your Facebook Information ” and then click on the “Upload Your Information” link to start the process. You’ll be able to customize what data you want to keep, as well as the quality of any included media if you’re concerned about free space.
Deleting your data: On the same ‘Your Facebook Information’ page, click ‘ Delete your account and information ‘ to start the process.
Flickr
Data backup: You can get photos from albums with a little download icon that you get every time you open one of your albums. Otherwise, to download everything in your Flickr account, go to your account settings page and select the “Request my Flickr details” option to start the process.
Deleting Your Data: On the Account Settings page, simply click on the ” Delete your Flickr Account ” option to get started.
Foursquare
Back up your data: There is no easy way to download a list of places you’ve been (and when). Some have had success a few years ago fetching this information through the Foursquare API , but that’s a lot of work for a lot of data that you probably won’t use for anything other than the novelty of having it.
Deleting your data: Go to your account settings page and go to the Privacy Settings tab. Scroll down a bit and click on the “delete your account” link to start the process.
Google+
Data backup: You have until April to get your Google+ data before the company completely shutdowns the service. Just visit Google’s Upload Your Data page to get started.
Deleting your data: it’s easy. Visit this page and you can delete your Google+ profile in just a few clicks.
Data backup . The relatively new Load Your Data tool is easy to use. On the Internet, click on the person-like icon to go to your Instagram profile. Then click the gear icon and select “Privacy & Security.” Scroll down to the Download Data section and click Request Download to get started.
Deleting your data: Instagram has a handy ‘ Delete Your Account’ page for doing this.
Data backup. Visit the Settings & Privacy page and then scroll down to How LinkedIn uses your data. Click on the “Upload Data” option to get started.
Delete Data: Go to the Account section of the Settings & Privacy page, scroll down and click Closing LinkedIn Account.
Livejournal
Data backup: You can use the Livejournal export tool to download one month’s posts – a terrible option – or you can use one of the many other third-party apps to download all of your journal content at once.
Delete data: Open your account status page and make sure the correct Livejournal is selected. If not, select what you plan to remove from the drop-down menu and click Switch. From there click on the Account tab, click on the Edit link in the Status field, choose if you want to delete previously made comments and community posts, click on the Status dropdown. and select “Deleted” and then click the “Submit” button.
My space
Backing Up Your Data: Myspace is not very kind to note that you can download individual Myspace images by right-clicking them and save them to your desktop or laptop – just like you would any other website. The service has a tool to download any video or music you’ve downloaded , but that’s about it.
Deleting your data: All you have to do is visit the settings page and select the “Delete account” option. It is so simple.
Back up your data: Unfortunately, Pinterest doesn’t have a tool to download your data. Instead , you will have to use a third party app like Pin4Ever or PinCrawl .
Wipe data: Click the three dots icon in the upper right corner of the Pinterest home page and select Change Settings. Scroll down a bit and click on “Deactivate Account” to start a process that allows you to either deactivate your account (which gives you the option to come back to it later) or close it permanently.
Snapchat
Data backup. Visit the Manage My Account page and select My Details to request an archive of much of what Snapchat knows about you.
Deleting your data: On the same Manage My Account page, click on the Delete My Account option.
Tumblr
Data backup. Visit the Account Settings page, click on your blog in the right sidebar and scroll down until you see the Export button.
Delete Data: Click the Delete Account button right below the Export button when you’re ready to say goodbye to Tumblr forever.
Back up your data: Go to the Account page and scroll down a bit until you see the Request Archive button. Click on it.
Deleting Data: Click on the “Deactivate Account” link under the “Request Archive” button to start the process. You will have 30 days to change your mind.
Data Backup: You can request a copy of your WhatsApp data through the app’s settings menu. However, your WhatsApp messages will not be included here. For them, you need to go to the “Chats” section in the “Settings” menu, where you can create backup copies of your conversations.
Deleting your data: You will find the option to delete your WhatsApp account in the app’s settings menu under the Account section.
Youtube
Data backup. Visit comfortable Page Archiver Google, the YouTube to get the data – and data from any other Google services, you might want to download.
Delete Data: Under YouTube’s Advanced Settings , you’ll find a Delete Channel button at the very bottom of the page. This will not delete your Google account , only your YouTube channel.