How to Remove Your Personal Information From the Internet

Want to cover your tracks? Seeking to escape from the internet? While online notoriety thrills some, it can be a great burden for others. Erasing yourself from the internet completely is not always possible, but you can use this wikiHow guide to remove most of your personal information from the web and social media apps.

Erasing Yourself from the Internet

Start by Googling yourself to find data to remove. Delete your social media accounts, gaming accounts, blogs, and profiles. Look yourself up on people search sites and submit requests for removal. If you can't delete your accounts, log in and delete all of your personal information.

Section 1 of 5:

Check Your Digital Footprint

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Find out what other people can learn about you. To truly delete yourself from the internet, you'll need to find out what information is out there. To check your digital footprint:
- Google yourself. When searching Google for your name, place it in quotation marks to see only results that apply to your name. Keep a list of all websites on which your name appears. If you have a popular name, try including your city or occupation in the search.
  - For tips on getting the best results from your Google search, see How to Use Advanced Google Search Tricks.
- Look yourself up on people finder sites: Sites like Checkpeople, Fastpeoplesearch, Pipl, and Instant Checkmate not only list your name, but they may also list your phone number, physical address, where you work, and even the names of your family members.
- Check your social media privacy settings: Apps like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok make the content you share public by default. If you haven't updated your privacy settings, you may be sharing your information with a wider audience than you thought.

Section 2 of 5:

Deleting Yourself from Google

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Contact Google to have your information removed (EU only). Great news for European citizens: Thanks to the Right to be Forgotten law of 2014, you can request that Google remove your personal information from their search results.^{[1]
X
Research source} To submit a removal request, visit https://reportcontent.google.com/forms/rtbf and fill out the removal form.
- Even outside the EU, you can ask Google to remove outdated content from their search results. The only requirement is that you must have either deleted or changed the content in such a way that Google's version is now incorrect.^{[2]
  X
  Research source} The removal tool is located at https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/removals?pli=1.
- Once you finish the steps in this article, search results that mention you should disappear over time unless archived elsewhere.

Section 3 of 5:

Deleting Your Accounts

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1
Consider alternatives to deleting your accounts. Since most of these steps cannot be undone, you will lose information, forfeit any marketable presence you've developed online, and sometimes lose the opportunity to recreate your account with the same name.
- Are there other ways around the problem, such as changing your online name or using a different email account from your normal one? For example, if your current email address has some unsavory online associations, you can create a separate one for professional transactions, like sending resumes and applying for scholarships.
- If you're worried about old tweets, consider deleting all your tweets instead of deleting your entire Twitter/X account.
- If there is a problem with false or defamatory information about you online, contact a legal practitioner for advice in your jurisdiction.
2
Delete your social media accounts. Considering how popular social media services have become, these are usually the first places people will try to find you online. Remembering all the accounts you've created over the years may be hard, but deleting yourself from the most well-known sites is a great place to start. This won't necessarily resolve "deep web" memory of you, but it's a good start. Use this list to get you started:
- Delete a Facebook Account
- Delete an Instagram Account
- Delete a Twitter/X Account
- Delete a YouTube Account
- Delete a LinkedIn Account
- Delete a Twitch Account
- Delete a TikTok Account
- Delete a Foursquare Account
- Don't forget sites like Ning and private forums. If you can't delete your account on a private forum, you can usually request that the forum administrator redact your posts.
3
Delete your gaming accounts. If you use any online or social gaming, deleting those accounts will also be helpful.
4
Delete your website and/or blog. If you've created a personal blog or website through a service like Blogger, Tumblr, WordPress, or Medium, you can delete all your content and close your account. If you have a paid web hosting account through a hosting service, contact that service to close your account and delete your website.
- If your website or blog was available to the public, it may have been archived by the Archive.org Wayback Machine. Although there's no official way to have your site unarchived, some webmasters have had success sending DMCA copyright infringement takedown notices to info@archive.org^{[3]
  X
  Research source}.
- Be sure to delete any accounts you have with advertising tools, statistics monitors, and third-party plugins.
- If you've submitted articles to online publications or content mill sites, you may be able to delete them by contacting the site editor.
- If other blogs have reposted your content, contact the blog owners and ask them to remove your name and content.
5
Cancel your dating profiles and subscriptions. Although you may not use your real name on your online dating profiles, they are still linked to your email address, phone number, or other identifying information. Check out these wikiHow articles about removing yourself from some of the more popular dating sites and apps:
6
Cancel your shopping and payment accounts. Sites like eBay and Amazon show public versions of your profile to other users, and that information may be easy to find in search engines. You'll definitely want to delete those accounts, but if you want to go a step further, you can also delete your payment accounts like PayPal and Venmo. Check out these wikiHows for tips on deleting your accounts with popular shopping sites and payment services:
- Delete an Amazon Account
- Delete an eBay Account
- Delete a Venmo Account
- Delete a Paypal Account
- Delete Your Square Account
- Don't forget about your subscriptions to local advertising groups, your Craigslist account, and your Etsy profile.

Section 4 of 5:

Deleting Your Info from People Search Websites

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Remove your name from data broker websites. If you're over 18, you likely found some Google search results for your name on various people search websites (e.g., Spokeo, InstantCheckmate, Intelius). These sites purchase your personal information and make it available to the public, sometimes for a fee. The good news is that you can usually delete yourself from such websites without much of a hassle, although you'll need to do it site-by-site.^{[4]
X
Trustworthy Source

Federal Trade Commission
Website with up-to-date information for consumers from the Federal Trade Commisson

Go to source} Here are some quick links:
- Checkpeople
- Fast People Search
- FamilyTreeNow
- Spokeo

Section 5 of 5:

What if I can't delete my accounts or info?

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1
Weasel your way out of undeletable accounts. Some sites don’t allow full deletion, forcing you to merely “deactivate” (while your information stays in the system) or abandon your account. If there is a serious legal or safety reason you need to delete your account, contact the site's owner or engineers; at the very least, you should be able to get a name change to cover your real identity. If you can’t get anyone to intervene on your behalf, try using these steps:
- Log in and delete all of your personal information. If leaving certain fields blank isn’t an option, overwrite it with a clearly fake name, such as Dingus Oppenheimer IV or John Smith. Do this on all of your undeletable accounts, and remember to vary the info on each account so they can't be traced to one another. If you try to provide a different email address, the site will email it to confirm, meaning nonexistent addresses are out of the question. This brings us to the next step.
- If you don't have an unidentifiable email address to associate with the account, create one with a free email host, and make sure the address you select does not include any information that can identify you.
- Once you have a new anonymous email account, add it to your undeletable profile and confirm. Once it goes through, make sure your real email address no longer appears anywhere in this account.
2
Consider paying a professional. If you're running into trouble or just feel like the task is too daunting, there are companies that specialize in data removal. These services are not free, but the cost might be worth it if your reasons for removal are urgent. Look for a service that:
- Can remove you from the "deep web" rather than just the obvious services.
- Has agreements in place with data source providers.
- Has good reviews.

Expert Q&A

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Question

What are some reasons people want to delete their social media accounts?

Melissa Newman
Social Media Strategist & Content Developer
Melissa Newman is a Social Media Strategist & Content Developer based in Bristol, Pennsylvania. With six years of experience, she specializes in social media strategy, content development, and community management. Melissa earned an MS in Digital Innovation in Marketing from the Fox School of Business at Temple University and a BS from Temple University. She also holds certifications from Facebook, Google Analytics, Hootsuite, and HubSpot Academy. Melissa has won awards for her social media campaigns, including the Jesse H. Neal Award for Best Use of Social Media, a Hermes Creative Award, and an Azbee Award for Best Social Media Campaign.

Melissa Newman

Social Media Strategist & Content Developer

Expert Answer

There are many reasons. One is if it impedes your quality of life, for example, if you feel awful about yourself after being online. Another is if it negatively affects your mental health. Also, there are security issues, where people create fake accounts with pictures you post of yourself. It is also sometimes a matter of whether you'd rather spend your time doing something else.

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How do I delete my email and all my photos from the internet?

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Before you delete your email account, ask people to delete all your photos. Then when they are all gone, delete your email.

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How do I delete all photos and criminal information about myself?

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Unfortunately, there is no way to completely erase yourself from the Internet if other people have posted things about you.

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Tips

There may be some things that you can't do anything about, such as mentions of you in the news and interviews you've given.

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If you're trying to avoid a cyberstalker, see How to Deal with Stalkers for tips on staying safe.

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Ask your friends to delete any photos of you (or photos you've taken) from their social media accounts.

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Warnings

Expect a rebuke from some webmasters who will insist on their "right" to keep public information public. Some of them just don't get the personal privacy angle and see this as a personal affront against what they stand for. Be persistent and, if needed, get help from a privacy organization or a lawyer if your need for privacy is pressing or serious.

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Some sites use emotional blackmail techniques to encourage you to stay. Such comments as "all your friends will miss you" are targeted at making you think twice; after all, the site doesn't want to lose your patronage. If you're wavering, get photos of your real-life friends, put them in front of you on the desk, press "delete" on the site, and phone up your real friends to have a drink and chat together. You'll be over it just like that.

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