Extended Grace Period for Deleted Facebook Accounts

For anyone thinking of taking a permanent break from Facebook: You need to start planning your timing. Facebook just extended its grace period for deleted Facebook accounts from 14 days to 30 days. Here’s all that you need to know about this new development.

30-Day Wait for Deleted Facebook Accounts

Are you one of the Facebook users who is genuinely thinking of deleting your account? Well, do I have some news for you.

Facebook used to have a 14 day grace period for users who want to delete their account. Note, this is different than deactivating your account, which only takes the profile offline for a period of your choosing. Users who now want to permanently delete their Facebook accounts have to wait a full 30 days before their request gets put into action.

According to The Verge, Facebook stated that the added grace period was actually for the benefit of the users:

“We recently increased the grace period when you choose to delete your Facebook account from 14 days to 30 days”…”We’ve seen people try to log in to accounts they’ve opted to delete after the 14-day period. The increase gives people more time to make a fully informed choice.”

While that might be true, what it also does is increase the time you have to wait before your data disappears. We don’t really know how this will reflect on the time it takes Facebook to delete your data off their database, but they do officially state that it “may take up to 90 days” to remove everything.

How to Delete Facebook Accounts

If you’re still adamant about deleting your Facebook account, you should follow these steps to a T. Remember, if all you want is a little break off the social media platform, you should deactivate your account instead. Deactivating will stop your account from being active online, but won’t delete your information. You will be able to log back in whenever you want. Deleting your account, on the other hand, will remove everything you have on there.

Got it? Great, Here are the steps to take to delete your Facebook account:

1. Select the drop-down menu at the top right of any Facebook page.
2. Click on Settings.
3. Select Your Facebook Information (left column).
4. Click on Delete Your Account and Information.
5. Select Delete My Account.
6. Enter your password. Click Continue.
7. Click Delete Account.

Extended Grace Period for Deleted Facebook Accounts – Final Thoughts

While I understand Facebook’s reasoning for adding to the grace period, personally I can’t help but think that it’s another attempt to maintain its user base as long as possible. The truth of the matter is that the past few years have not been kind to the social media giant. From the Cambridge Analytica scandals to the global data breach that happened just last week, Facebook seems to be losing the trust of many.