Whether your sick of Snapchat or just the people on it, deleting the social network permanently is surprisingly easy to do. You’d think they’d beg you to stick around around, but nope. It’s not quite as simple as deleting the app off your phone because your account will still exist on Snapchat’s servers, but it’s still an easy process to follow.
You’ll need to have your Snapchat username and password ready and ideally be on a computer rather than your phone. Snapchat has a dedicated website for deactivations and deletions.
How to First Deactivate Your Snapchat Account
Before you can permanently get rid of your Snapchat for good, you first have to just deactivate it. It means the process takes a bit longer, but it’s a necessary step in case you change your mind.
Visit http://support.snapchat.com/delete-account in your preferred browser. Now log in with your Snapchat username and password and confirm that you are not, in fact, a robot.
Click Continue to proceed to the deletion page. Snapchat will make you confirm that you definitely want to deactivate your account. Type in your username and password one final time to do this.
It also gives you notice that you can reinstate your account only for up to 30 days after deactivation, similar to Twitter’s rules. After the 30 day mark passes, you can no longer reactivate and it is gone for good.
Click Continue to successfully deactivate your Snapchat account.
If you change your mind before permanently deleting the account, all you need to do is log in with your same username and password in the Snapchat app as always. Snapchat will notify you that your account is deactivated and ask if you want to reactivate. Tap Yes to get up and running yet again.
How to Permanently Delete Snapchat
The good news is if you want to permanently delete Snapchat forever, you have no further work to do from here. Once you deactivate your account, Snapchat will automatically delete it after 30 days. Keep in mind that also means you can’t just deactivate your account and then a year later decide you want it back. It’ll be long gone by then.
It doesn’t seem there is a fast-track to deletion other than to wait the 30 days. You can try to get in touch with Snapchat Support to see if they can do anything to delete it sooner, but that’s unlikely.
It’s also probably unnecessary, since deactivation means no one can find or interact with your account. During the 30 days it’ll already be nonexistent to the public.
Once you permanently delete Snapchat, you can create a new account by downloading the Snapchat app again at any time. After all, those face effects are pretty fun.
