How to delete your Twitter account

Twitter connects millions of people worldwide. Along with Facebook and Instagram, the short news service, which started up in 2006, is undoubtedly one of the best-known and widest-reaching social media platforms. Tweets are the perfect way to share your thoughts and daily experiences with the world – no matter what time of day or place. To not disappoint your followers, it’s normal to tweet several times a day and maybe even reveal some personal information. This is not only stored on the web, but also on the company’s servers, so having doubts about the state of data protection is totally justified.

If you don’t want to accept the consequences from this uncertain data protection situation, or you want to retreat from the platform entirely, then you have no choice but to delete your Twitter account. But how do you delete your account correctly? And what do you need to bear in mind?

Twitter account: What is the difference between deactivating and deleting?

If you have previously thought about deleting your account and started to take the necessary steps, you might have seen that there is also the option to deactivate the account. This is by no means an alternative option to deleting your account, but rather the preliminary step you have to take so that your profile can be properly deleted. During the deactivation process, your display name, your @ username, and your public profile will no longer be visible to others. After 30 days, everything (including all other data such as tweets, photos, etc.) will be permanently deleted.

Note

This option differs from permanently deleting your account, since you are able to reactivate your deactivated account within 30 days. All account information and content, which has been published on your timeline, will be visible again and available to everyone.

Optional archiving of tweets, images, etc.

If you’ve decided to retire your Twitter career, you can initiate the deletion process yourself. You don’t need to make an official request or get into direct contact with the microblogging service support team. Before you start, however, you should ask yourself whether you want to archive everything you’ve done for sentimental reasons. This means that, at a later date, you will be able to view all photos, texts, and tweets that you published from your account. The short message service doesn’t save backups on its own servers, giving you total control over the locally stored memories, since you can choose the device they should be saved on.

If you are interested in archiving, you can request the data by accessing your profile settings and clicking on “Account” -> “Content” -> “Your Tweet archive.” You will then receive an e-mail containing the archive files in ZIP format.

Twitter: settings for content
If you don’t receive the e-mail with the archive data from your Twitter profile, you can have it be sent to you again as long as your account is still active.

Step by step: how do I delete my Twitter account?

If you have already saved your data locally or are not interested in archiving it at all, you can delete your Twitter profile whenever you’re ready. Like the “tweet archive” request described above, this works via the profile settings. However, you need to access the platform’s website on a desktop computer since it’s not possible to delete your account using the iOS and Android mobile app, however you can deactivate it this way.

Step 1: access the Twitter site and log in

For the first step, visit Twitter’s website using your desired web browser. Click on the “log in” button and enter the login information for the Twitter account that you want to delete. If you’ve forgotten your password, you can click on “Forgot password?”. Then you must enter your e-mail address, telephone number, or username connected to this account. Twitter will then e-mail you all the information you need to reset your password.

Twitter: log in window
To log into Twitter, you need either your registered telephone number, the e-mail address used during registration, or your username and your password.

Step 2: open the “Settings and privacy” menu

In the upper menu bar, click on your thumbnail picture next to “Tweet” and select “Settings and privacy” from the menu.

Twitter web application: “Settings and privacy” menu
Access to Twitter’s “Settings and privacy” menu can be found in the same place as the logout button.

Step 3: deactivating your Twitter account

You will automatically be taken to the account menu, where you can not only set your username or language and request the information that is to be archived, but can also deactivate your account. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page to find the “Deactivate your account” button.

Twitter: “Deactivate your account” option
The function to delete your Twitter profile is easy to overlook, not only because of the positioning, but also because of the very discreet coloring.

After clicking this button, the microblogging service will inform you of the consequences of deactivating your account. Select “Deactivate” once more to confirm you want to begin the deletion process.

Advice box displayed when deactivating your Twitter account
In addition to information about the consequences of deleting your account, Twitter provides tips for users who only want to change their username or use it for another account.

You will be asked to enter your Twitter password one last time before your account is officially deactivated. As long as you don’t log in to the platform with this account in the meantime, it will be permanently deleted (as well as all user data) after the 30-day deactivation status has expired.

Note

Instead of deleting your entire Twitter account, you can simply delete all tweets and followers as well as all personal information (including profile photo) and activate the option “Protect your Tweets.” After just a few days, users won’t be able to find relevant information about you. This way you can keep the option open to reactivate your account as needed – regardless of your length of absence.

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