Whether you’re trying to curb screen time, reduce your online presence, evade an online stalker, or protect your privacy(新視窗) from the likes of Meta, deleting social media is often a first step. But there’s a little more to it than simply deleting apps from your phone. With Instagram, you’ll probably want to not just delete your account, but permanently erase your data as well.

Not ready to ditch your Instagram handle all together? You can also make your account private or temporarily disable it and come back any time.

How to permanently delete your Instagram account and data

Ready to delete your Instagram presence for good? Deleting your account is a permanent, irreversible option that will remove your photos and videos, as well as all your interactions with other accounts, including likes, follows, and comments on other profiles.

Open the app and:

  1. Tap your Profile icon → Menu (☰) → Settings and Privacy.
  2. Go to Accounts Center Profiles and personal details Instagram → Manage.
  3. Select Delete account and tap Continue
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That’s all that’s required on your part to delete your account. But there is a caveat. Instagram gives you a 30-day grace period to change your mind. During the 30 days after your deletion request, you can opt to reactivate your account, halting the deletion of your information and media. After 30 days, the information will be gone for good.

How to temporarily disable your Instagram account

If you’d rather just take a break from Instagram, you can deactivate your account, which effectively hides it until you decide to reactivate it. This is a temporary measure that you can choose to do on a weekly basis, indefinitely.

When your account is disabled, followers won’t be able to see your photos or videos, and you won’t appear in searches. Similarly, your likes, comments, and follows won’t appear in the app. Once you reactivate your account, all of this information will reappear.

Keep in mind that you can’t sign in to your account when it’s disabled. You’ll have to reactivate it to view your own content and that of others.

To temporarily disable your Instagram account:

  1. Tap your Profile icon → Menu (☰) → Settings and Privacy.
  2. Go to Accounts Center → Profiles and personal details → Manage Accounts → Instagram → Manage.
  3. Select Deactivate account and tap Continue.
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To reactivate your Instagram account, sign in to the app again. Doing this will reactivate your account, making your profile visible again.

How to download your data before deleting your account

Before permanently deleting your account, you can download and save your data, including your photos and videos, to keep and store elsewhere. To do this:

  1. Tap your Profile icon → Menu (☰) → Settings and Privacy.
  2. Go to Accounts Center → Your information and permissions → Export your information and tap Create export.
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You can export your information to a device or external service either in HTML or JSON formats. You can download all of your information or pick and choose categories, such as comments, likes, saved posts, and media. You can also specify a time range for a custom date or all of time.

Information exports default to medium quality for photos and videos, but you can opt for higher or lower quality depending on the amount of space you have available for storing.

Tap Start export when you’re ready.

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How to make your Instagram account private

Looking to share a little less on Instagram, but still want to view other people’s content through the app? You can always opt to make your profile private. Public profiles are viewable by all Instagram users. With a private account, only approved followers can to view your content.

Similarly, you can limit who’s able to view your Instagram stories, and even compile a close friends list for stories, only showing a select few certain updates.

To go private:

  1. Tap your Profile icon → Menu (☰) → Settings and Privacy.
  2. Go to Accounts Center → Account privacy and toggle the Private account switch on.
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How to protect your privacy on Instagram

Making your profile private is one way to ensure only the users you approve can view your content, but there are other ways to help guarantee you aren’t making yourself vulnerable to data breaches and hacks.

Meta’s privacy center within your app settings has tons of details on how to achieve this within Instagram, beginning with the option to private message other users using end-to-end encryption. If your teen is using the app, you can implement controls for age-appropriate use and content.

You can change or (新視窗)(新視窗)(新視窗)reset(新視窗) your Instagram password(新視窗) at any time and add two-factor authentication and additional recovery methods in the case of a problem accessing your account. You can block other profiles from seeing what you share, and from messaging you. In addition, you can review your tags on other users’ photos and posts before approving them.

Instagram allows UK users to pay a subscription fee(新視窗) for an ad-free experience, though experts disagree on how much safer this makes the app when it comes to your personal data.(新視窗)

Be sure to update your Meta privacy settings(新視窗) and clear your search history regularly. The Instagram app automatically deletes your search history after 30 days, but you can set it to wipe clean as often as every three days. This feature is under Your information and permissions in the Accounts Center. Tap Search history and Keep searches for to adjust the time frame.

Finally, adjust the amount of information Instagram shares with businesses in the Accounts Center under Your information and permissions. Tap Your activity off Meta technologies to adjust your settings.

If you’re concerned about your privacy, ditch the app

If you can’t live without Instagram but are concerned about your privacy, one of the most powerful steps you can take is to ditch the app and access your account through a web browser. Meta is able to collect far less information about you through a browser than through its apps, and most mobile browsers can even send notifications from Instagram website to your phone.

With a good VPN, you can also easily hide your real IP address (the single most revealing piece of data a website can collect about you) from Meta.

Get Proton VPN

Memorialize an Instagram account

Meta offers a way to remember loved ones who have died by memorializing their social media presence. You memorialize someone’s account on their behalf or designate someone to memorialize your own when you die. You can designate a contact for this within the app any time. Alternatively, you can tell Instagram to simply delete your profile after you pass.

To memorialize or delete the account of someone who has not already set a preference within the app, contact Instagram with proof of death, including an obituary or news article, to have the profile changed.

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Final thoughts on Instagram’s privacy and data collection policies

Instagram doesn’t exist to help you stay in touch with people. It exists to keep you scrolling long enough to profile you and sell that profile to advertisers, and Meta has built an entire company around making that as hard to opt out of as possible. Deactivation at least pauses this, but deleting your account puts an end to it.

However, for many of us, the benefits of sharing our lives and letting others share their with us outweighs privacy concerns. In this case, a private account, a wiped search history, and using the browser instead of the app are small ways to claw back a bit of what you’re currently handing over for free.

You don’t owe Meta your data just because deleting the account feels like a hassle. The hassle is the point, it’s designed that way.