How To Delete Your Instagram Account

By

If you really, really want to delete your Instagram account, it's pretty easy
If you really, really want to delete your Instagram account, it's pretty easy

So you decided to quit Instagram. You already exported your photos with Instaport, but is that enough to stop the Evil Empire from mining your account for yet more information to sell to advertisers?*

What you need to do, my friend, is delete your Instagram account entirely. Luckily, it’s pretty easy, an almost one-click process — unlike quitting Facebook itself, which is all but impossible.

Yesterday, after Darth Zuckerberg announced that Facebook was acquiring everyone’s favorite photo-sharing service Instagram, Twitter was aflame with hatred, and many a tweet promised that its writer was totally going to delete their account, like, real soon now. So I asked my incredibly smart Twitter followers if any of them had actually deleted their accounts yet. The replies were an almost equal mix between “Hell yeah. Already done,” “I’m going to wait to see if Facebook actually ruins it.”

So, how do you do it? Simple. Just visit the account removal page (linked from this support page for the paranoid) and follow along. Unlike Facebook, which pretends to delete your account, Instagram will nuke everything from orbit. Not just your photos, but your comments, likes, friendships and even your username will be dust (and you can’t even start a new account with the same name in the future).

If you care, I’m in the “wait and see” camp. Instagram is my favorite social network, and I’m hoping that Facebook will let it live as it is. Sort of like what Yahoo did to Flickr, only without the whole ignoring-it-until-it-withers-and-dies part.

[Via Ben Brooks]

*Not that all this info wasn’t free to see all along, anyway.

Newsletters

Daily round-ups or a weekly refresher, straight from Cult of Mac to your inbox.

  • The Weekender

    The week's best Apple news, reviews and how-tos from Cult of Mac, every Saturday morning. Our readers say: "Thank you guys for always posting cool stuff" -- Vaughn Nevins. "Very informative" -- Kenly Xavier.