What happens when a Facebook profile is deleted?

Facebook has become one of the most popular social media platforms, with over 2.8 billion monthly active users as of Q2 2021. With so many users, it’s no surprise that millions decide to delete their Facebook profiles every year. But what exactly happens when you delete your Facebook profile?

Why Do People Delete Their Facebook Profiles?

There are a few common reasons why people decide to delete their Facebook profiles:

Privacy Concerns – Facebook has faced criticism over its data and privacy practices. Some users don’t like that Facebook collects so much personal data and want more control over their information.

Too Much Time Spent on Facebook – Heavy Facebook use can become a distraction and time sink. Deleting a profile can help reclaim time spent mindlessly scrolling.
Toxic Community – Facebook communities can become polarized and promote hate speech or misinformation in some cases. This motivates some users to leave the platform.
Fresh Start – Major life events like relationships ending or changing jobs prompt people to delete their profiles and start fresh.

What Exactly Is Deleted from Your Account

When you delete your Facebook profile, here are some of the key things that Facebook removes:

Your profile is removed and no longer searchable on Facebook.
Your photos, posts, videos, comments, likes, and groups are erased.

You stop showing up in the News Feed and notifications for your Facebook friends.
Apps and websites unlinked from your Facebook account no longer access your data.

Essentially, deleting your profile wipes your presence from the core Facebook user experience. But some data does still remain:

Facebook may retain data for up to 90 days in case you change your mind and want to reactivate your account.
Copies of your data remain on Facebook’s servers, but are disassociated from your account.
Records can remain in Facebook’s analytics systems for billing, fraud detection, and legal purposes.

Step-by-Step Guide to Deleting Your Facebook Profile

If you’ve decided to take the plunge and delete your Facebook profile, here is a step-by-step guide:

Login to your Facebook account
Click on the down arrow at the top right and select “Settings & Privacy”

Go to the “Settings” section and click on “Your Facebook Information” in the left menu
Select “Deactivation and Deletion”
Choose “Delete Account” and then “Continue to Account Deletion”

Facebook will now show you some reminders to download data, remove tags, and notify friends
Select “Delete Account” again to confirm

Facebook may take up to 90 days to fully delete all data from its systems. During this time your profile and info will not be visible to other users.

What Happens to Your Facebook Data?

When you delete your Facebook profile, your data doesn’t just instantly vanish. Due to the massive scale of Facebook’s systems, data deletion happens in stages:

1. Account Deactivation (1-90 days)

Immediately after requesting account deletion, your profile and content are hidden from other users. Facebook starts the deletion process but still retains your data in case you change your mind.

2. Data Disassociation (3-90 days)

In this stage, your account data becomes fully disassociated from your account. This means it’s no longer tied to your user ID. The data still exists on Facebook’s servers, but without identifiers linking it to you.

3. Data Erasure (90+ days)

In the final stage, your unlinked data is fully cleared from Facebook’s storage systems and logs. Only leftover data like billing records remains. This stage may take over 90 days given the massive scale of Facebook’s data centers.

So in summary, your account enters a deactivated state, with content hidden, before data is slowly disassociated and erased from Facebook’s systems.

Is All Your Data Really Deleted?

Given Facebook’s huge systems and backups, some residual data likely remains even after your account deletion completes. A few things to note:

Backups – Facebook systems create regular backups for disaster recovery purposes. Traces of your data may exist on backups that are maintained offline.
Third-Party Apps – If you used Facebook to log into apps, games, or websites, they may still retain your data that was previously synced.
Facebook Users’ Data – Memories and data of your Facebook friends may still involve you, even if you delete your account.

So in reality, while Facebook deletes the core records of your profile and activity, it’s impossible to remove all historical traces of your existence within Facebook’s systems.

What Happens If You Signed Up With the Wrong Email?

Sometimes people sign up for Facebook using a temporary or incorrect email address. This can become a problem if you ever want to delete your account.

If you try deleting your Facebook profile from an email you no longer have access to:

Facebook will send a confirmation link to that email when you request deletion. Without access you cannot confirm.
Your account will remain in temporarily deactivated state until you reconfirm deletion.
To fully delete the account, you need to either regain access to the email or contact Facebook support.

The lesson here is to always use a permanent, accessible email when signing up for important accounts like Facebook. Otherwise you may lose full control over deleting the account later on.

Can You Recover a Deleted Facebook Account?

If you regret deleting your Facebook profile, is it possible to recover your account? The answer is maybe, but only for a limited time:

During the first 1-90 days after requesting deletion you can reverse account deletion by logging back in.

After 90 days, Facebook erases the account fully and recovery becomes impossible through normal means.
You could try contacting Facebook support and providing proof of identity, but account recovery is not guaranteed.

Essentially, Facebook only allows a short grace period of up to 90 days to undo deleting your account. After that, the process cannot be reversed.

What About Deleted Facebook Messages?

Separately from deleting your entire account, you may wonder what happens to deleted Facebook messages:

When you delete a message you sent, it disappears from your inbox and the recipient’s inbox.
However, Facebook may retain deleted message data for up to 90 days before fully erasing it.

If the recipient deleted the message, you can no longer retrieve it.
Facebook does not allow users to recover deleted messages through account recovery.

So regular Facebook messages sent through the platform are deleted in a similar 90-day timeframe to full account deletion. The data is removed from view but still exists in Facebook’s system temporarily before final deletion.

What About Deleted Facebook Posts and Photos?

Deleting individual Facebook posts, photos, videos, and other content behaves similarly to messages:

When you delete a post or photo, it disappears from your profile and News Feed.
However, deleted posts/photos may still exist on Facebook’s servers for 1-90 days before final deletion.

Content also remains on the Facebook servers of any users who still have it cached or saved.
Once cached content expires on users’ devices, deleted posts/photos eventually disappear fully.

So like messages, deleted posts and photos are first hidden then erased in stages. But copies of the content may still exist temporarily on other users’ devices or Facebook’s own servers after deletion.

Does Deleted Facebook Data Still Exist Internally?

Given how much data Facebook collects and processes, traces of deleted user data likely persist internally:

Machine learning models – Facebook trains AI models on user data. These models may retain latent traces of deleted user data.
recommend personalization – Facebook’s recommendation algorithms use your data to personalize suggestions for new friends, groups, etc. so some imprint of your data remains to shape recommendations, even if you delete your profile.

Network insights – Relationship graphs between users have aggregated insights that do not disappear just because one user deletes their account.
Statistics – Facebook derives global stats from user data that it likely retains, like age demographics, interests, behaviors, etc.

In summary, while Facebook deletes the core records of your profile, activity, posts, etc. when you delete your account, data derivatives like stats, insights, and machine learning models still retain an imprint of your data’s impact on the overall Facebook ecosystem.

Can You Delete Specific Facebook Activity?

Instead of fully deleting your account, you can selectively delete portions of your Facebook activity and data:

Delete old posts – Go to your Activity Log and delete individual posts.
Unlike pages – Dislike pages you no longer want to follow.

Leave groups – Depart from any irrelevant or unused Facebook groups.
Edit interests – Go to Ads Preferences and remove any outdated interests.
Limit past posts visibility – Restrict which friends can see your earlier posts.

Targeted deletion of your Facebook activity allows you to curate the parts of your profile you want removed, without fully deleting the account.

Should You Download Your Facebook Data Before Deleting?

Before deleting your Facebook profile, it’s highly recommended to download an archive of your Facebook data:

Go to Settings > Your Facebook Information > Download Your Information to request a data archive.

This will allow you to save photos, posts, messages and other personal data before deletion.
It may take up to a few days for Facebook to prepare the downloadable file with your archive.
You can also use your data archive to migrate your main Facebook photos and posts to another social media platform if desired.

Downloading this archive ensures you have copies of your Facebook memories and data before erasing your profile completely.

What About Facebook Messenger If You Delete Your Profile?

Many users are understandably unsure about what happens to their Facebook Messenger account if they delete their Facebook profile:

Facebook and Facebook Messenger operate as separate products and accounts.

Deleting your Facebook profile does not delete your Messenger account or your message history.
You can continue using Messenger normally even after deleting Facebook.
If you do want to fully delete Messenger as well, you need to do so directly from the Messenger app’s settings.

The key takeaway is that Messenger functions independently from your core Facebook account. Unless you also specifically delete your Messenger profile, it will remain intact after deleting Facebook.

Does Facebook Actually Permanently Delete Anything?

Given Facebook’s data retention policies, privacy critics argue that Facebook never truly deletes user data permanently:

There have been cases where deleted Facebook data was later discovered intact.

With vast databases and backups, some experts say permanent deletion isn’t feasible.
Regulations may also require Facebook to retain some records of deleted data.
However, Facebook claims it does fully delete accounts after the retention period expires.

The reality is probably somewhere in the middle. While data may persist in some form, it does appear that Facebook makes a reasonable effort to honour user requests for deletion. But true permanent erasure may not be possible.

Is Deleting Facebook Enough to Protect Your Privacy?

For those concerned about data privacy, deleting Facebook takes a big step in containing your online footprint:

Stops Facebook from collecting new personal data or tracking your activity and connections.

Erases past Facebook posts, info and other sensitive content.
Lets you start fresh online without old social baggage.
For full online privacy, also consider deleting other social media, tightening security settings, using VPNs, password managers, and other tools.

Deleting Facebook certainly improves privacy considerably. But you may need take additional steps to minimize your overall online exposure based on your specific situation.

Conclusion

Deleting your Facebook profile initiates a complex, months-long process of dismantling your presence and removing your data from Facebook’s systems. Key things to know:

Your profile and content are first hidden then deleted in phases over 90+ days.

Traces of your data may still remain in backups, other users’ accounts, and internal systems.
You have a short 1-90 day window where you can reverse account deletion if you change your mind.
Permanent and irreversible account deletion takes at least 90 days to complete.

Be sure to download an archive of your profile data before deleting your account.

In summary, Facebook deletion is a gradual process that ultimately removes the core records of your profile and activity. But the massive nature of Facebook’s network means remnants of your data may persist internally or externally in some form indefinitely.