Wiley Twitter Tips, Tricks, and Tweets, 2nd Edition 978-0-470-62466-1 User Manual

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Twitter Tips, Tricks, and Tweets

Deleting Your Twitter Account

I have the feeling that you’re going to love Twitter, but it’s also true that microblogging isn’t for 

everyone. The constant pressure to answer the canonical Twitter question “What’s happening?” 

may simply become too much after a while. If taking a short break doesn’t help (I’m talking about 

a few days or even a few weeks, not a few minutes), then you can walk away and move on with 

your life. You could opt to let your account lie dormant (it is, after all, free), but if there are updates 

you want to get rid of, or if you don’t want new people to follow you, then you should delete your 

Twitter account.

Of course, it could be that you love the whole Twitter thing, perhaps even to the extent that you’ve 

created multiple Twitter accounts. Lots of people juggle multiple Twitter identities (I have two, 

myself), but it requires lots of logging in and out, and lots of extra work updating and maintaining 

each account. If it all just gets to be too much, you might want to delete one or more of your 

accounts so you can finally get some sleep at night.

  If you need to go the multiple-account route, then I strongly suggest using a 

third-party tool that supports multiple Twitter accounts, such as TweetDeck. See 

Chapter 8 for a look at some of these powerful tweeting tools.

Fortunately, unlike a lot of online services that bury their account-removal features in some 

obscure nook or cranny of their site (or, worse, require you to call the company to have your 

account terminated), Twitter makes it nearly painless to delete an account. Here’s what you do:

 1. 

 2. 

Click Settings. The Settings page appears.

 3. 

 4. 

Near the bottom of the page, click the Deactivate my account link. The Is this 

goodbye? page appears, which asks if you really want to go through with this.

 5. 

Click Okay, fine, deactivate my account. Twitter deletes your account.

Did you click the Okay, fine, deactivate my account button and then immediately regret your rash 

decision? Not to worry, because Twitter actually keeps your account in limbo for six months. If you 

change your mind within that time, you can get your deleted account restored with almost no fuss. 

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