How to deactivate Facebook temporarily

In this article, we'll explain how to suspend your Facebook account without permanently deleting it. Check out the instructions on how to do it.

Sometimes social networking can become a hassle, or too much of a commitment to keep up with. So sometimes it can be useful to suspend your Facebook account temporarily, and then reactivate it when you have more time to dedicate to it. So it is not necessary to delete the platform, if you want to take a break.

How to suspend your Facebook profile

To suspend your Facebook profile you need to take a few minutes, connect to the social network and fill out a form. Just open the drop-down menu that appears by clicking on the downward arrow icon, visible at the top right of the blue bar of the social network, and select 'settings'. A page with several items will then open: here you will have to click on 'Security', on the left, and locate the item 'Deactivate your account', which is located in the center, at the bottom of the screen.

At this point, to suspend your Facebook account you will just have to click on edit, and confirm your intentions when the item 'Deactivate your account' appears again. At this point, the platform will present you with a form, which you should fill out in its entirety, explaining the reasons for deactivation. Then you will confirm everything by clicking on the 'Deactivate' button. Finally, the system will ask you to type in your password and enter a confirmation code.

Before suspending Facebook: backing up your data

Before understanding how to suspend Facebook, it is important to do a preliminary operation, that is, to save a backup of your data, useful to avoid losing them during the procedure, should something go wrong. To do this, you have to open the Facebook page, enter the settings by clicking the down arrow at the top right, and click on 'Download a copy'. At this point you have to click on 'Start my archive'. When the procedure is finished, the system will send you an email with the download link. Naturally, depending on the amount of data present on the social network, the operation may take more than 24 hours.

Suspending Facebook: the effects

Suspending Facebook does not mean deleting yourself from the social network: the account, at the end of the procedure, will be deactivated, but will still be visible to friends. This means that you can be tagged, that you can receive invitations to events or online games. If you want something more drastic, you'll have to proceed to the actual deletion of your Facebook profile.

Suspending Facebook: how to go back

In case you have second thoughts, or if after a certain period you want to be active again on Facebook, obviously there is a way to do it, by canceling the previous procedure. In short, suspending Facebook is only temporary and absolutely reversible. To cancel the effects of what you've done, simply connect to the social network in question, enter the login page, access your profile, and that's it: the account, in fact, will be automatically reactivated and you can continue to use it as before.