Say 'bye' to Mark Zuckerberg: How to delete your Instagram account.

It's easy to say "goodbye" to Facebook.

Most of your friends left long ago and you're already trying to avoid your conspiracy theory-posting great aunt like the plague. However, Facebook is just one part of Mark Zuckerberg's social networking giant, Meta. And you very likely use one of its other popular, more media-centric platforms.

That's right, I'm talking about Instagram.

Meta's photo and video sharing social network, Instagram, can be just as toxic as its sister site Facebook. All those big problems Facebook has, well, Instagram's got them too: Disinformation, fake followers, foreign influence campaigns, NFTs, scams, surveillance, just to name a few of their shared issues. And I didn't even touch on Instagram's problem of feeding you photo after photo of privileged travel influencers living lavishly in exotic locales while you're typing away in a dull office.

If you already got rid of Facebook for those reasons, maybe it's time to say "goodbye" to the rest of Meta as well.

How to delete Instagram

First things first: If you’re looking for a delete button somewhere in the menus on your Instagram mobile app (you know, the thing most people use to surf and post on Instagram), you can stop. You cannot delete your Instagram account via the mobile app.

You can only delete your account by logging into Instagram from your desktop or mobile browser.

1. Download your Instagram data first

But before we get to deleting your account, you may want to download your data to your own personal computer hard drive first.

To do that, log in to your account via the web browser and click “Settings” (the gears icon) on your profile page. Click the “Privacy & Security” option on the pop-up menu, then click on “Request Download” under Data Download.

Be sure to download your Instagram data before deleting all your memories. Credit: screenshot / instagram

Type in your email address and hit the “next” button. Instagram will email you a downloadable file with all your data within 48 hours.

Got your data? Good. Now, to delete your account.

2. Delete your Instagram account

Log in to Instagram and click this link to go to the Instagram account deletion page. Are you deleting your account because of data concerns? Privacy issues? Let Instagram know via the options in the drop-down menu.

Why are you deleting Instagram? Well, they want to know. Credit: screenshot / instagram

After that, you’ll be presented with a password input. Just type out your Instagram password and click “permanently delete my account.”

Remember! Your account, along with all your photos and data, will be deleted from the platform for good. You will not be able to register a new account with that same username, so make sure you really want to delete your account before hitting that button.

And ... that’s it. You have now freed yourself from yet another Mark Zuckerberg-run social media platform.

This story was originally published in December 2020 and last updated in March 2024.