There are several reasons you might want to permanently delete your Twitter account.
It could be that you’re tired of the endless scrolling, done with the cyberbullying, or something else.
Whatever the reason, you need to know how to get off the microblogging platform and take all of your data with you.
In this guide, I discuss everything you need to know about deleting Twitter on mobile (iOS or Android) and PC.
But first, you need to know this:
Deactivating Your Twitter Account Comes First
Before you can delete your Twitter account, you need to deactivate it.
This deactivation process is essential to allow Twitter to confirm that you’re not mistakenly deleting your account.
If you don’t log into the account for 30 days after deactivating it, the social media platform permanently deletes your account and all the data associated with it.
Should you log in to the account (from any device) within 30 days of requesting a deactivation, Twitter reinstates your account, and you’re back to having an active presence on the platform.
Now that you understand how deactivation works in line with account deletion, keep reading to find out how to delete your Twitter accounts across your iOS and Android apps or desktop and web.
Deleting Your Twitter Account on Android Devices
Follow the steps below to deactivate Twitter on your Android device:
- Open the Twitter app on your Android device.
- Tap on your profile picture in the upper-left corner.
- Select “Settings and Privacy.”
- Tap “Your Account.”
- Tap “Deactivate Account.”
- Twitter will inform you what happens when you deactivate the account. Scroll to the bottom and click “Deactivate.” This option is usually in red.
- You’ll get the prompt to enter your password to deactivate the account. This safeguard ensures someone else isn’t trying to deactivate your account without your knowledge.
Once you complete the steps above, remember not to log in to the account in the next 30 days so Twitter can process your deletion request.
To confirm the account is permanently deleted, wait till the 32nd day (to be extra sure) before you try logging in again.
That way, you don’t trigger the reactivation of the account.
Deleting Your Twitter Account on iOS
If you have the iOS app for Twitter, follow this guide to delete your account:
- Launch the Twitter app from your iOS device’s home screen.
- Tap on the profile icon on the upper-left of the screen.
- Tap “Settings and Privacy.”
- Tap “Your Account” at the top of the page.
- Select “Deactivate your Account” at the bottom of the page.
- On the resulting screen, select “Deactivate.”
- Enter your password again and confirm the account “Deactivation.”
As before, allow Twitter up to 30 days to delete the account after deactivation.
Deleting Your Twitter Account on Desktop/Web
Whether you’re using your PC or a MacBook, the steps below show how to delete your Twitter account:
- Open your choice browser and enter the Twitter web address (https://twitter.com/).
- If you’re not already logged in, enter your username and password.
- On the homepage, click “More” on the lower-left of the page.
- Click “Settings and Privacy.”
- Click “Deactivate your account” on the far-right screen.
- On the same screen, scroll to the bottom and click “Deactivate.”
- Enter your password and click “Deactivate” again.
With that, Twitter should delete your account in the next 30 days.
What Deleting Your Twitter Account Doesn’t Do
Deleting your Twitter account removes your account details (username, tweets, and media) from the platform.
However, your account always has some remnants on the platform and the general web.
Here are things that deleting your Twitter account doesn’t do:
1. Remove Tweets From Search Engines
Search engines like Yahoo, Bing, and Google index tweets, and they might not be pinged by Twitter when you delete your account.
Some of your tweets, tweet replies, and even media you uploaded to your account (during its lifetime) might remain on those search engine servers.
However, when someone clicks those tweets or replies from search engines, the link goes to an error page.
I’ll discuss how you can scrub your Twitter content from search engine results in a bit, so stay tuned.
2. Retain Information in Twitter’s Systems
Twitter maintains that it purges its system of all your data after you delete your account.
Your data remains on its system for the first 30 days between deactivating the account and final deletion.
After deleting your account, it’s impossible to reference old tweets, replies, or media you uploaded on the platform after deleting your account.
It’s best to download your Twitter data archive and store it in a safe space to be on the safe side.
This data archive contains everything from your tweets to replies and even media.
Twitter has a straightforward guide to downloading your archive that you can follow.
3. Delete Your Account Content From Internet Archives
While you can reach out to search engines to delete your account’s content on their results pages, this is impossible with internet archive pages.
Tools like the Internet Wayback Machine take screenshots of the internet at different times.
So, even if your account isn’t showing up anywhere else, it might keep showing up there.
4. Remove All Mentions of Your Account
Every tweet that has ever mentioned your account is not removed once you delete your Twitter account.
Looking for those tweets will show that your account was mentioned, but it’s not blue like active accounts.
This means other users cannot click your username to access your account page.
How to Scrub Deleted Twitter Account Information From Search Engines?
If you find instances of your tweets and old Twitter activity still showing up on search engines, you can delete them.
Follow the guide below for Google:
- Login to your Google account.
- Open the Google Outdated Content Removal page (https://search.google.com/search-console/remove-outdated-content).
- Copy the URL to the tweet/Twitter content you want to remove.
- Click “New Request” at the bottom of the page.
- Paste the URL you copied in the provided box.
- Click on the “Submit” button.
Note that Google reserves the right to remove or keep this content, but you have a higher chance of removal once you submit this request.
Likewise, the search engine will only remove content that no longer exists, so make sure your account is entirely deleted before submitting this request.
This guide was developed for Google alone since it’s the major search engine with more than 91% search engine traffic.
If you want to submit a request for Bing and Yahoo, follow the relevant guides below:
Yahoo maintains that you don’t have to do anything to remove content that’s not existing on a website anymore from its search results.
This happens automatically and can take between 10-12 weeks, after which the search engine refreshes and purges such data.
Copy your account URL (not just individual tweet URLs) and paste it into the removal tool.
Since all tweets are indexed from the root account URL, search engines should wipe all account instances on their servers once the root is removed.
Alternatives to Deleting Your Twitter Account
There may be a better alternative to all-out deleting your Twitter account.
Consider these approaches before letting your Twitter account go:
1. Deactivate Your Account Briefly
Best Use Case: get away from Twitter briefly.
Before Twitter deletes your account, there is a 30-day grace between deactivation and final deletion.
If you want to get away from Twitter for a while but don’t want to lose your account, deactivate it.
Should the 30-day period not be enough, you can log in again (on the 29th day, maybe) and deactivate the account again.
That gets the 30 days running again.
2. Block Malicious Followers
Best Use Case: avoid cyberbullying, prevent online targeting.
Malicious followers can make your Twitter experience less than ideal, but they should not be the ones to drive you off the platform.
Blocking these followers removes their content from your feed, prevents their mentions from getting to you, and keeps them out of your DMs.
Follow the official Twitter guide to block Twitter users on iOS, Android, or desktop devices.
You still see those mentions when blocked users are mentioned by non-blocked accounts you’re following.
You just won’t see what the blocked account replies or tweets.
Likewise, a blocked user can create a burner account to follow you.
That’s where the next solution comes in.
3. Make Your Account Private
Best Use Case: improve privacy, avoid cyberbullying.
Setting your Twitter account to private is essential to ensure only your inner circle sees your content.
Combine this with blocking malicious accounts or muting specific keywords (check how below) to have a cleaner Twitter experience.
When you make your account private, you can manually review all follower requests before they access your tweets and profile.
This makes it impossible for anyone to creep into the inner circle you’re maintaining.
The short video below shows you how to make your Twitter account private:
4. Mute Certain Accounts or Keywords
Best Use Case: use Twitter cleanly, avoid trigger words/content, clean your timeline better.
Twitter allows you to mute an account, serving as a silent block.
The account does not know you muted them (unlike the block feature), but you don’t see their tweets or activity.
They can, however, still send you DMs and mention you in their tweets.
An advanced feature that I love is muting specific keywords, phrases, hashtags, and even emojis.
While the muted tweets and content do not appear in your mentions and home tab anymore, you will still see them if you perform a Twitter search.
Twitter has a definitive guide to muting certain content on your account here.
It has a video guide included too, if you prefer that.
5. Change Your Account Handle/Name
Best Use Case: start afresh, avoid certain users
You can start afresh by changing your account handle/name.
This approach works best with deleting your tweets since other users can search them.
You might also have to make your account private to complete the starting afresh process.
However, if you’re planning to delete a personal account to maintain only a business account, you can delete all of your older tweets and use the same account.
An account with followers will even have better traction than the one you just started, so that’s another win for you.
For any other reason, though, follow this guide to change your Twitter username:
FAQ
Can You Delete Twitter Likes?
You can delete your Twitter likes by ‘undoing’ the likes in your account.
Twitter puts all of your likes in one place where you can access them and unlike each tweet.
This is an exemplary method for users with a few likes but will be too stressful for a few hundred to thousands of likes.
Free software like the Twitter Archive Eraser allows you to bulk delete all the tweets you’ve liked on your account.
Can You Delete Twitter History?
You can delete your search and tweet history from your Twitter account.
To wipe your search history:
- Log in to your Twitter account (on iOS, Android, or Web).
- a – Click the search icon (for iOS and Android alone. Skip to next step for web/desktop).
- b – Tap the search bar (for desktop users).
- Your recent searches appear in the search bar.
- Tap “Clear All.”
All of your current and older searches will be deleted from the system.
To delete your tweets, Twitter has an official guide to doing that to follow.
While Twitter does not offer a way to bulk delete tweets, some third-party apps do.
You should seek them out and pick trustworthy ones (since they get access to your account) if you’d like to get rid of multiple tweets from your account at once.
Can You Delete Twitter Messages?
You can delete your direct messages (DMs) on Twitter if you don’t want them anymore.
You can delete single messages or the entire conversation thread.
To delete single messages:
- Log in to your Twitter account (on iOS, Android, or web).
- Click the “Messages” icon.
- Enter the conversation you’d like to delete a message from.
- a – Long-press the message until an action box pops up on the mobile app.
- b – For desktop/web app, click the three horizontal dots to the bottom left of the message to bring up the action box.
- Click “Delete message for you” from the drop-down menu.
Note that this only deletes the message on your end, but the recipient still has access to that message.
To delete an entire conversation, follow the steps below:
- Log in to your Twitter account (on iOS, Android, or web).
- Click the Messages icon.
- a – Long press on the conversation you want to delete (iOS and Android).
- b – Click the three horizontal dots to the right of the conversation.
- Click “Delete conversation for you”/“Delete conversation.”
Again, this does not delete the conversation on the recipient’s side.
Can You Delete Twitter Followers?
Previously, the only way to remove Twitter followers was to block them.
Now, Twitter allows you to remove followers from your account without blocking them.
However, you can only do this one after the other.
Below is a step-by-step guide to deleting Twitter followers:
- Log into your Twitter account on the web.
- Choose the follower you want to remove. You can go through your follower list or search for their account.
- From their account page, click the three dots icon for options.
- From the options that emerge, click “Remove this follower.”
Note that this feature is not available on the iOS or Android apps yet, so you have to go to the desktop website.
Can You Delete Your Twitter Without Logging In?
Twitter has to be sure that the authorized owner of an account has initiated a deactivation and deletion process to safeguard the data of its users.
Thus, you have to be logged in to delete your Twitter account.
If you cannot log into the account for any reason, contact Twitter support for help on regaining the account password before you delete it.
Can You Delete a Twitter Business Account?
You can delete a Twitter business account in the same way you’d delete a personal account.
You have to first deactivate your Twitter account from the account settings, after which you shouldn’t log in for the next 30 days to delete the account.
Note that you cannot delete an ad account associated with that business account, but you can pause the ads and even remove your credit card details from the platform
What Next After Deleting Twitter?
If any of the alternatives on this list didn’t work for you, I believe you went ahead to rid yourself of your Twitter account.
Now, it’s time to do other stuff while deciding if you ever want to return to the platform.
In the meantime, you might also be interested in protecting your privacy on Facebook and boosting the rest of your online privacy and security.