Follow our guide to deactivating your Reddit account so that you can take the next step in cleaning up your digital footprint. Just remember, it’s permanent.
Reddit is one of the fastest-growing and media-attention-grabbing social media sites in 2021. The site, which has garnered quite a bit of controversy as of late, operates mostly anonymously. Most “redditors” have usernames that do not resemble their real names and instead post under aliases. Even if that is the case for you, you may need to know how to delete your Reddit account permanently.
Maybe you did make the mistake of creating a username that could be traced back to your real person. Or, maybe you have posted something that someone recognized as coming from you. Reddit does require users to signup with an email address, so maybe you are simply trying to clean up your digital footprint and delete all of your social media.
What to know before deactivating your Reddit account
While other social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn give users the chance to deactivate or pause their accounts, Reddit is permanent. There is no grace period where you can change your mind and come back to your account with Reddit.
With Reddit, deactivation = deletion, so don’t be confused by the terminology. Once you hit deactivate, it’s gone forever.
If your goal is to delete posts or comments you have made over the years, be aware that deactivating your account will not delete those posts. A warning: Once you do deactivate your account, there is no way to go back and delete your old posts. They will live on the site presumably forever with the username deleted.
If you want to delete your posts, you have to do so individually, going through each post and comment and selecting delete.
The same goes for direct messages that you have sent to other users. You will have to individually delete each message, or else they will remain in those users’ inboxes but will be unattributed.
How to delete Reddit posts and comments
If your goal is to delete something from Reddit, you need to do so post-by-post and comment-by-comment. Follow these steps on how to delete your posts and comments before you deactivate your account for good.
- Sign-in to your Reddit account via a web browser and click on the avatar at the top right of the page.
- Select “Profile” from the dropdown menu.
- At the top of your profile page, click “Posts” to view a list of all of the posts you have ever made.
- To delete a post, click “…” under the post you wish to delete and select “Delete”
- Follow the same steps for comments
How to deactivate your Reddit account permanently
Before you deactivate, double-check your posts and comments to be sure there is nothing you left. Now that you are ready to delete, follow these steps on how to delete your Reddit account.
- Log in to your Reddit account on a web browser
- Click your avatar at the top right corner of the page.
- Select User settings from the dropdown menu
- Scroll to the bottom of the page and select DEACTIVATE ACCOUNT
- At this step, you must re-enter your username and password to confirm your identity
- Enter your username and password and click DEACTIVATE
A future free of social media
So now that you have cleaned up your history with Reddit, you are ready to continue on to other social media accounts. Digital hygiene is extremely important for a number of reasons, but mainly for your own security. You need to protect yourself from cybercrime, identity theft and data breaches. Lax digital practices could end up costing you significantly in the future, both in the pocket and with your time.
Follow Privacy Bee’s step-by-step guide to deleting social media to continue on your path to good digital hygiene. You can also use these tips to delete yourself from the internet.
