Reddit can be a wonderful social media platform. For many people, it allows them to explore their interests with a certain degree of anonymity that is today rare online (though if you want to learn more about that, see our guide on how to protect your digital privacy on Android). Not only that, Reddit users are often willing to provide resources, ideas, or product advice. On that note, here is a list of the best mechanical keyboards available now. Because of this, Reddit is one of the few social media networks left reminiscent of the old internet.
That being said, any online platform can, in time, become harmful, frustrating, or simply not useful anymore. Is this the case for Reddit? We guide you through the process of deleting your Reddit account.
Before deleting your Reddit account
Before we describe the steps necessary to delete your Reddit account, there are a few things to keep in mind.
Firstly, deleting your account won’t remove any of your Reddit posts. They remain on the platform under a generic “deleted user” profile name. If you want to delete posts and your other Reddit data before closing your account, Reddit has a handy guide with FAQs for specific types of content.
Secondly (and counterintuitively), Reddit Premium members must cancel their subscriptions before deleting their accounts. Failing to do so results in having to contact Reddit’s customer support to avoid paying a subscription for a non-existent Reddit account.
Finally, you’ll need your Reddit username and password to confirm the deletion of your Reddit account, so make sure you remember them before you initiate the process.
All set? Let’s get that Reddit account deleted.
How to delete your Reddit account
To delete your Reddit account, you need to know that the process is only available on desktop web browsers or via the Reddit app for iPhone and other iOS devices (sorry, Android). Because of this limitation, this guide follows the steps of how to delete a Reddit account using a computer’s web browser (though we will update this guide once the process becomes available on the Reddit mobile app for Android).
- Open your web browser of choice (we use Firefox in this guide, but Chrome, Brave, and most other browsers will do).
- Type reddit.com in your web browser’s search bar to go to the Reddit website.
- After opening Reddit’s main page, click your profile picture in the upper-right corner to bring up the drop-down menu.
- Click User Settings.
- Scroll to the bottom of the page to the delete account section and click Delete Account.
- A popup window opens. Enter your username and password, tick the checkbox to acknowledge your data is not recoverable, and click Delete.
- Optional: If you created your Reddit account using Google or Apple ID credentials, locate the Connected Accounts section in account settings and click disconnect next to the Google account or Apple ID you used to sign up. If you never set up a password, you must do it before you can delete your account.
Unlike Twitter or Facebook, Reddit does not provide users with a three-day grace period that allows them to log back in and recover their data. In other words, there is no temporary “deactivate account” option. Once you click that big red button, your data is gone for good.
Starting over again
Now that you’ve deleted your Reddit account, you may wonder what other social media you could get rid of. We have a guide on how to delete your Twitter account, too, so you may want to look at that one. And if you deleted your Reddit account to make a new one, we have a guide covering how to create a new Reddit profile and one on how to make a new subreddit.
