How to Delete Your Instagram Account

Visit “https://instagram.com/accounts/remove/request/permanent” in your browser, select a reason from the list, re-enter your password, then click “Delete” to delete your Instagram account. It takes a month for the deletion to be permanent.

Instagram is owned by Facebook, a company that continues to divide opinion. That’s not likely to change any time soon, and if you don’t trust Facebook, you might distrust Instagram, too. Here’s how to delete your Instagram account.

Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 for a cool billion dollars, a move that raised eyebrows at the time but seems like a bargain in the current social media climate. Instagram is one of the most influential social media platforms around, and despite its affinity with Facebook, it continues to grow. There has been a steady stream of people leaving Facebook over recent years, but Instagram has been largely unaffected.

However, some people distrust Facebook enough also to want to remove themselves from any Facebook-owned services—Instagram included. If you want to delete your Instagram account, the process is a surprisingly simple one considering the hoops Facebook makes you jump through to delete your account there. If you do want to delete your Instagram account, consider downloading all of your images, first.

Warning: A word of warning here, too. Once this process is complete, your account will be deleted. That part is obvious, but you will also not be able to re-open a new account under the same name, so keep that in mind if you thought deleting your account would be a good way to start fresh. It still can be, but only if you are willing to choose a new name, too.