Are you tired of social media platforms and need to take a break from Snapchat? Well, you can decide to deactivate Snapchat or permanently delete it. In this article, we will be guiding you on how to deactivate Snapchat. Stay in touch to the end.
Snapchat is a popular platform around the world. It is well known as an instant messaging app, especially among the young generation. Most people interact by sharing videos; photos are only accessible within 24 hours after disappearing.
Though the platform has millions of active users daily that read, share and create content, not every person is contented with the platform. One of the turning points is the fact that a user on the platform can easily record your snap even without your consent and knowledge.
But the good news is that the platform notifies the sender when someone records or takes a screenshot of your snap, even with the proprietary tool, but other apps let you avoid such a situation.
Therefore, for personal reasons, you might wish to take a break on the platform and maybe come back some other time later. Well, you can try deactivating your Snapchat account. However, does it work? And if so, then how does one go about it? Great questions. You can only find the answers in our article. Let us proceed to the next section.
Can You Deactivate Snapchat?
First, we should mention that deleting your Snapchat is easy to process. However, the suitable option is to deactivate the account instead. Therefore, while you can deactivate your Snapchat account, there are a few things as well you need to have at your fingertips.
Other than completely deleting your Snapchat account, it is recommended that you deactivate it. Here, there are a few points you need to be aware of. Besides the process, you also need to know for how long you should leave your Snapchat account before it is permanently deleted upon deactivation.
Despite the stiff competition on social media platforms, Snapchat has increasingly become popular in media spaces over the years. Though the majThoughtforms compete by developing advanced features to offer different purposes, some gaps are still closed on the platforms.
The obvious instance is the Snapchat stories. Though Snapchat is the founder of stories, the feature has been imitated by various social media platforms like Whatsapp, Instagram, and Facebook.
Even if you need to test these competing features on another platform because you need to take a break on Snapchat, the platform allows you to deactivate the account, which only works temporarily.
Deactivating a Snapchat account is not a unique process like deleting a social media platform account. For the users to deactivate or put their account on deactivation mode, you must first log into the account through the Snapchat portal on the website using the relevant credentials and password.
After that, you will have an option to delete the Snapchat or deactivate the account. Though deactivating sound is permanent, it is not a permanent process, and in fact, you can decide to reactivate it after some time.
Download Your Snapchat Data Before Deactivating Your Account!
The first thing you need to do before you deactivate your Snapchat account is to download the account data. The information consists of all your log-in history, profile, chat history, snap and account information, and things like memories, search history, friends, and bitmoji. You can thus download such information before proceeding to delete or deactivating the account so that in case of anything, your data is safe.
Here is how to go about it:
Step 1: Open your browser and navigate to the accounts.snapchat.com website
Step 2: Make sure you log in to the platform to access your account with relevant details.
Step 3: Then from the menu, tap my data, and hit on the submit request.
Step 4: After that, Snapchat will send you a download link o the email address you verified your account; you can use the link from the email to download your Snapchat data. For the deactivation, you are now free to proceed, which is in the next section.
How to Deactivate Your Snapchat Account?
Before that, note that immediately after you are done deactivating the Snapchat account, there is no extra step required to delete the account as well permanently. When 30 days elapse upon deactivating the account, the Snapchat account will be deleted with the contents. Thus, there are various methods to deactivate your Snapchat account. Just follow along:
From Account Portal
Again a quick remember, ensure you have saved your Snapchat data first before deactivating. Then remember that immediately you complete the deactivation steps, your account will not be deleted there and then. It will take 30 days before deleting, but you have an option to reactivate within these days provided. So, here is how to deactivate your Snapchat account from the account portal:-
Step 1: One your browser and head to the account portal.
Step 2: Then, you will be promp[ted to type in the username and the password of the Snapchat account you need to deactivate. Make sure you keep the log-in details so that when you change and before 30 days, you can use the details to reactivate the account.
Step 3: After that, tap enters and follows the prompt instruction to finalize the deactivation process.
Your account will then be put on hold, and no one, even your friends, cannot interact with your account. It is either you can change your mind and reactivate the account within 30 days. But after 30 days, the account will be permanently deleted, including all the database. When reactivated, it will only take 24 hours maximum before you regain the account.
However, Snapchat always keeps your personal information because of security, business, and legal needs. Such information includes the transaction history through which you made a purchase using your Snapchat account, which is in their terms of service, and the privacy policy.
From the iPhone
Deactivating a Snapchat account on the iPhone is a simple process. You are good to go as long as you have the app installed. The exact process applies to android devices as well. Therefore, follow the below steps:
Step 1: Click on the Snapchat icon on the phone home screen to launch it. Ensure you are logged in to the account.
Step 2: Then click on the Bitmoji avatar to open your profile which is found at the top left corner of your screen.
Step 3: Then from there, click on the setting gear to open the settings option.
Step 4: After that, keep scrolling until you locate the account actions from the menu.
Step 5: Then, on the options, click on delete account.
Step 6: This will redirect you to the account portal on which you will be requested again to enter the Snapchat username as well as the password.
Step 7: Then, you will need to follow the quick procedure and delete or deactivate your account.
How to Reactivate Your Snapchat Account?
Before 30 days elapses, you can reactivate the deactivated Snapchat account. But remember, this might end up taking you up to 24 hours till you retrieve all your data back to the account. Such a long time involves the application updating the memories, which involves collecting all the photo history. When the server gets a request about the reactivation, it tends to get all the information and put it together.
Here is the procedure you need to follow to reactivate your Snapchat account ad gain access. It applies both on android and iOS devices:
Step 1: Launch the Snapchat application, click on the log-in button
Step 2: Then proceed by entering the relevant username & password, then click the log-in icon. Here you should note that once you deactivate the Snapchat account, the only way to reactivate it is to log-in in using the username with password. At this point, your email address will not work.
Step 3: You will see a notification stating that your Snapchat account is deactivated. Then click yes to reactivate your Snapchat account.
Step 4: Then Snapchat again sends you a notification requesting to wait for the account to be reactivated, then tap the ok icon to agree.
Step 5: Then, through your email dress, Snapchat will send you a message when the account has been reactivated so that you can gain access using your log-in credentials.
But there is a situation when the Snapchat reactivation might fail. If your account falls under this category, then consider the below tips:
- If your account has been deactivating within 24 hours, then reactivation methods will automatically fail to work. This is according to the Snapchat community guidelines, which state that the process takes about 24 hours to process the request when you deactivate the account.
- Secondly, when you are reactivating your account past 30 days, you will not get any response as to reactivate the account. This is a long time that you have extended beyond the scheduled duration to change your mind. The time frame given is only30 days, and so when you skip or sometimes tend to assume if not forgetting, the account will be permanently deleted.
FAQs
1. Will people not be able to see my messages after I delete my Snapchat account?
Even after deleting your Snapchat account, your previously Snapchat-sent message will still be accessible from the other end. So, when you delete your Snapchat account, it only deletes the content on your account, not the content your friends got from your end.
2. Whether Snapchat will know about my friends after I deactivate my Snapchat account?
Immediately after you reactivate your Snapchat account, your previous friends will not be able to access your data. No existing message will alert your friends that you deleted or deactivated your Snapchat account since the account will only disappear. Maybe you will notify your friends about your account deletion using a different method.
3. How do I know if my friends have deactivated their Snapchat accounts?
You can know that a friend has deactivated the Snapchat account when you search for them using their username on the platform. So, if the search result doe not display the friends, then the friend might either have deleted or deactivated the account
Conclusion
As long as Snapchat allows users to delete or deactivate their accounts, it still gives them another chance to reactivate the account within 30 days when they change minds in the future. In our article, we have covered how to deactivate your account using different devices.
We have also highlighted the steps and minimal requirements to reactivate a deactivated Snapchat account. But before you deactivate your account, you first need to download your Snapchat data to be safe. Thus, follow the above steps and take a break from the social media platform before you decide to reactivate again.