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Deleting an account on any platform you use regularly is not something to take lightly. When you delete an account, you lose all the information associated with it, and you can never get it back. The same is true of Reddit.
If you delete your Reddit account, you’re going to lose your account information, your saved posts, your post history, your comment history, and anything else you have that you may care about.
Despite this loss of information, there may come a time where deleting your account seems like the best course of action. Many people get worried about having a lot of their private information on the internet. After all, many Reddit users attempt to stay private, yet with personal interests, information, and more, they can lose that privacy.
On top of privacy issues, many Reddit users were angry to find out that there’s a default setting that tracks users’ actions. This information is then sold to third-party companies for advertising purposes. For that reason, using a VPN service when you’re on Reddit can help keep your information private.
If you’re thinking that you want to delete your account for good, you can follow the steps outlined here.
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Things to Know Before Deleting Your Account
If you want to delete your account, you should know what happens. As mentioned, you lose all your information. The process of “deactivating”, as Reddit calls it, is irreversible. If you change your mind a couple of days late, and you want your account back, there’s nothing you can do—it’s gone forever. Your username will never be shown on Reddit. However, your comments and posts will remain live.
That means, even though you don’t have an account, your posted information will still be displayed on posts and subreddits. The only thing is that the posts and comments will not display your old username. Reddit says your posts and comments are “unattributed” meaning the posts do not have an original poster associated with them.
Similarly, any private messages you’ve sent will still be shown to the users who received them. Again, these messages will not have your name displayed with them.
Before deleting your account, you should consider whether to delete your posts and comments.
Deleting Posts and Comments
If you’ve already made the decision to delete your Reddit account, before you do so, you’ll have to decide to delete your posts and comments before your account. Many people often delete their accounts only to realize their posts are still on the site.
Unfortunately, there’s nothing they can do at that point, as those posts are already unattributed, and you have no authority to remove them.
Take a look at your posts and comment history to see if there is any personal information that should be removed. If not, and you don’t care about the posts and comments you’ve made, then you can delete your account worry-free.
However, if you’ve posted or commented with information that may indicate who you are or where you live, you should think about deleting those before it’s too late.
Online privacy is not something to take lightly. Check out this online privacy guide to learn why your digital privacy is so important.
How to Delete Your Post and Comment History
First, you’ll need to go to Reddit and log in. In the top right corner of the website, click on your name and click on the “profile” button to see all your account information.
Now that you’re at your profile dashboard, you can view your posts, comments, hidden posts, upvoted posts, and more information.
Start with the “Posts” option on the top of your dashboard. You can look through all your posts to see if you find something that has personal information that you want to delete. When you find a post that you want to delete, click on the icon of three dots on the bottom right corner of the post. From there, click “delete”.
This post will then be deleted forever.
You can repeat this with all your posts and comments.
Steps to Delete Your Account
Since both old and new Reddit is being used, the process of deleting your account has a tiny difference.
Deleting Your Account on old.reddit.com 👴🏻
Assuming you’re already on the Old Reddit, first, make sure you’re logged in to the account you want to delete. Navigate to your “preferences” by clicking on the button named the same in the top right-hand corner of the screen.
Once you’re at your preferences page, look for the “deactivate” tab on the top of your dashboard. From this page, you can delete your account for good. You’ll have to type in your account credentials—both your username and your password. After confirming that you understand your deactivated account cannot be recovered, you can press the “deactivate account” button, and your account will be permanently deleted.
Deleting Your Account on reddit.com 🧒🏼
Go to Reddit and sign in to your account that you want to delete. Click on your username in the top right-hand corner of the screen. From the dropdown list, select the “User Settings” button to go to your account settings dashboard.
From this page, if you scroll all the way to the bottom, you’ll see a button that says “Deactivate Account”. Same as with old Reddit, you’ll need to type in your credentials to confirm that you want to permanently delete your account.
The Bottom Line
Reddit is one of the world’s most popular websites with over 430 million users around the globe. That doesn’t mean that all users are happy with how Reddit is governed. Many people worry about their online privacy and act to ensure they stay safe while using the platform.
Nonetheless, many people will eventually want to delete their account whether from safety concerns or for other reasons. If you want to delete your Reddit account, the above will tell you all you need to know.
