Delete your Snapchat account: The regularly updated complete guide

Snapchat is a popular social media app allowing users to share their photos and videos with friends. While Snapchat is banned in China, the world’s largest user base, this limitation hasn’t prevented the platform from becoming one of the internet’s most significant ones. Hence, today, it boasts three hundred million daily users.

But the size of a social media network has nothing to do with its usefulness. Sometimes you need to get away from some things. If this time, Snapchat is what’s irritating you, here’s how to deactivate your Snapchat account once and for all.

Deactivate Snapchat account – Quick guide

We will explain in detail every step you need to take if you want to download all your Snapchat data and permanently disable your account. However, the essential process is pretty simple, and if you’re in a bit of a rush, here’s what you need to do:

You are home now. Your Snapchat account is deactivated. Now you can’t use it, and others can’t send you messages.

Download your Snapchat data

If you’d like to keep any of the data you have stored on Snapchat, you need to do it before you disable your account. Once your account is disabled, you can’t do anything with it anymore unless you request a reactivation before 30 days. So having access to the information you intend to download requires an active account.

• Log into your account.
• Next, click on “My Data.”
• Scroll down to the bottom of the page. You’ll find the “Submit request” button. Click on it.
• You now need to provide your email address verified with your Snapchat account (the one you provided when you signed up for a new account.) 

After a few seconds, the email address in question should get a message from Snapchat. Inside it, you will find a link that will enable you to download a file that contains all of your Snapchat information. That information may include your user name, snap history, chat history, memories, friends, search history, and bitmojis.

Deactivate your Snapchat account

After downloading your data, you are now safe to proceed towards Snapchat deactivation. However, bear in mind that these steps are just the initiation of your departure from the platform. To complete Snapchat account removal, you must perform some additional steps (explained in the following section).

But before deactivation, double-check your downloaded Snapchat data to ensure that you don’t regret deleting your account in the future. Once done, here’s how to proceed.

• Log in to your Snapchat account.
• Now go to the delete Snapchat account link.
• A prompt will appear asking you to enter your login credentials. So, submit your email address and password and click the “Continue” button.

That’s it. You have now successfully deactivated (but not deleted) your Snapchat account.

How to delete your Snapchat account

So now that your account is deactivated, the next pertinent question is: what do you do to delete it completely? That is the easiest part: Nothing. 

Once you deactivated your Snapchat account, all you need to do is to count to 30 because the service will delete the account for you once 30 days have passed. It is all automatic, so you just sit back and wait. In the meantime, your account is already as good as deleted because it allows no activity whatsoever.

If you want your account deleted right now, we’re sorry to tell you that Snapchat doesn’t support that action. Instead, every disabled account must wait 30 days before it goes away.

You’ll know that deletion occurred because, after that point, you would have no more access to your list of friends, account settings, snaps, chats, stories, or any other item — unless, of course, you downloaded all your Snapchat data before disabling it.

Why do users opt to delete their Snapchat accounts today?

Snapchat is a popular social media app whose charm has everything to do with its volatility. The audiovisual material you can get from Snapchat fades into cyber-oblivion as soon as you’ve seen it. There’s no copy of the content anywhere, so what happens in Snapchat stays in Snapchat. That’s how it ensures online privacy to the users — one of its points of pride.

However, it kept silent when the Cambridge Analytica scandal shook the news –a private company that had collected data from millions of users on Facebook. The silence didn’t sit well with many users, which probably led Evan Spiegel, the company’s CEO, finally slam Mark Zuckerberg.

How could it be possible that an app supposedly boasting the most advanced privacy algorithms and data protection had nothing to say about a competitor who sold its users out?

Then April 2019 saw the app bring out several new features, especially the App Stories one. Your Snapchat content can go straight to another social media app as a “Story.”

The new feature raised questions about Snapchat’s commitment to privacy. The whole point of Snapchat is that everything on there is volatile. How will that happen if Facebook or Tinder can use its data? Even if Snapchat honors its much-publicized posture on user privacy, what is the point if it can all end up on Facebook, and we all know how much Facebook cares?

Deleting vs. deactivating Snapchat

The deletion process in Snapchat starts with a 30-day long deactivation period. So don’t rush about forgetting your username or password since 30 days is long enough to change your mind.

You can reactivate your Snapchat account at any point in the following 30 days by simply logging in again with your username (email login doesn’t work with deactivated accounts). But be patient. After you reactivate your account, you’ll have to wait a whole day.

Then, if you do nothing for 30 days, your Snapchat account will definitely be deleted.

Can I use Snapchat without losing my privacy?

Whenever we consider the Big Brotherish nature present in many apps we know and love, we feel tempted to delete every account, cancel our phone and internet service, and throw away every device. But, of course, that would be radical, absurd, and impossible. Nevertheless, there’s plenty we can do to ensure that we can remain as private as possible within each particular environment, Snapchat in this case.

So don’t reach out for your hammer just yet. Before you destroy your phone because of Snapchat, try these suggestions first, they will help you to keep enjoying Snapchat without giving away too much of your privacy.

1. Update your Snapchat privacy settings

Have you ever had a look at Snapchat’s privacy settings? If not, please do it now. You will find different settings that give you back some degree of control over your social media information. Consider each option and make a choice.

Then, make sure to turn on the Ghost Mode. It will limit the location data your app knows about you, short of disabling location tracking too.

2. Use a VPN

VPNs are the easiest and most effective way to protect your privacy, security, and anonymity on the internet. A good VPN will encrypt your traffic and spoof your IP address. Moreover, if your VPN keeps no user logs, then your internet activities will never be traced to your actual IP address.

Additionally, the best VPNs will give you plenty of advantages, such as avoiding the geographical restrictions you find in almost every video streaming service.

The VPN we like best for almost every task is ExpressVPN. It’s also suitable to help you protect your privacy as a Snapchat user. It’s fast, reliable, has servers everywhere, and is easy to use. Undoubtedly, ExpressVPN has the most prominent reputation in the VPN-verse for excellent reasons.

Final thoughts

“Big Brother” has become our idea of constant surveillance from Orwell’s 1984. But instead, we spend a good deal of our lives in a digital world where every website you visit, every app you launch, and every device you use will collect some of your personal data. Our reality is way beyond what Kafka or Orwell could have imagined. 

Therefore privacy is a valuable commodity, and your private data is too. That is why securing your online privacy is not only more important than ever, but it’s even an economic necessity. 

Within such an environment, it only makes sense to ask, “is it worth it? What’s the risk involved here?” every time we consider using another social network. Ask yourself this question about all your accounts. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, all of them. Are they worth it? Are they giving you more than what they’re costing you? If the answer is no for any platforms, don’t think twice about deleting it. Start with Snapchat. Now you know how!

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