How to delete your Facebook account 2015

Remove yourself from Facebook forever with our five-step guide

If you're yearning for a Facebook-free lifestyle, we've put together a simple guide to deleting your Facebook account.

Before we begin, though, please be sure you want to delete your account, not just temporarily remove it. Following these steps will lead to permanent removal of your account and all its data, which cannot be undone.

If you just want to take a break without deleting your account, you can follow Facebook's instructions for deactivating your accounthere.

How to permanently delete your Facebook account

1. Log into Facebook

First, for security reasons, you will need to log into Facebook. If you're deleting an account you haven't used in a while and have forgotten your password, you will need to reset it. You can find instructions for how to do that here.

2. Download your Facebook data

As this deletion process is permanent, you may wish to save your data first. You can do this by clicking on the down arrow in the top right hand corner of the screen and select Settings.

You will be presented with a list of general account settings, at the bottom of which is a link to "download a copy of your Facebook data", where you can do exactly that.

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3. Contact Facebook

Facebook doesn't make it easy to delete your account, and has buried the request form deep in its help pages. To make it easier for you, we've linked to it here - you will need to be logged in to continue.

If you're certain you want to go ahead, click "delete my account".

4. The final step

You will now get a pop-up window warning you, once again, that this is a permanent decision and asking you to re-enter your password. You will also need to enter a CAPTCHA, then click "OK".

5. The cooling off period

Clicking OK on the delete pop-up isn't quite the end of the process. The previous pop-up will instead be replaced with this message:

"Your account has been deactivated from the site and will be permanently deleted within 14 days. If you log into your account within the next 14 days, you will have the option to cancel your request."

After clicking OK on this message you will have exactly 14 days to change your mind. After that time, your account will be goneforever with no way of reactivating it or retrieving any data you didn't save. Don't say we didn't warn you.