If you think that you’ve read all that there is to see on Reddit, or want to stop being a “Redditor” for some other reason, you may want to get rid of your Reddit account. You may also want to join one of the Reddit alternatives that we mentioned in our previous tutorial. In any case, if you want to leave “the front page of the Internet” for good, here’s how to shut down your Reddit account. To delete a Reddit account:
- Log into your Reddit account.
- Click “Preferences”.
- On your “Preferences” screen, click “Deactivate”.
- Tell Reddit why you are deactivating your account (optional).
- Enter your Reddit account user name and password.
- Acknowledge that you can’t recover a deleted Reddit account.
- Click “Deactivate Account”.
By just reading the process, you might think that there are a lot of steps to go through in deleting a Reddit account. However, leaving Reddit is actually quite a short and simple affair. Our detailed instructions below will illustrate this.
Detailed instructions for how to delete a Reddit account
1. Log into your account on Reddit.
If you need a reminder of how to log into your Reddit account, see the first section of our How to Post on Reddit tutorial for instructions.
2. Access your preferences on Reddit.
In the upper-right corner of the home page of Reddit (or most pages on Reddit), next to your user name, click Preferences.
3. Access the screen for deleting your Reddit account.
Once you are on your “Preferences” page for Reddit, click the tab at the top of the window that says Deactivate.
4. Tell Reddit why you’re leaving (optional), type in your Reddit user name and password, accept that you can’t get a deleted Reddit account back, and click “Deactivate Account”.
On the left side of the screen, you will see a series of boxes that will help you get your Reddit account closed.
You can click in the box labelled “Why Are You Deactivating This Account?” and type in some details about why you want to delete your Reddit account. However, this is totally optional.
Below this box, click in each of the two boxes labelled “User Name” and “Password” and type in, respectively, your user name on Reddit and the password that you chose to protect your Reddit account.
Below these two boxes, click the check box labelled “Confirmation” to signal to Reddit that you realize that you can’t get your account back if you delete it.
When you’ve done all of that, click the Deactivate Account button.
Notes on deleting your Reddit account
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Deleting your account on Reddit will not delete any posts or comments that you have made on Reddit. You can, however, delete these individually before closing your account.
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Even if you delete your account on Reddit, nobody (including you) can sign up for Reddit with the same user name as the one that you used for that account. However, you can sign up for a new Reddit account with a different user name, as long as it hasn’t been used before.
Now you know how to delete your account on Reddit! If you actually do so, Snoo (Reddit’s mascot) says goodbye, and wishes you the best!
