How to Deactivate Facebook Messenger

While Facebook gave the latest version of Messenger a unique aesthetic feel that appeals to many users, the new version, unfortunately, made it difficult, and sometimes even impossible, for users to perform certain actions they normally performed in the older version of the app. If you're wondering why there's no Deactivate button on your Messenger, you'll be surprised to learn that Facebook removed the option to deactivate your Messenger account from its iOS and Android apps. This means that even if you’ve deactivated your Facebook account before now, your Facebook Messenger account might still be active.

As of now, you can only deactivate your Messenger account if your Facebook account is deactivated. Thus, if you want to deactivate your Messenger account, you must first deactivate your Facebook account. In this article, we will show you how to deactivate your Facebook account – in case you haven’t done so yet – and how to deactivate Facebook Messenger.

Tip: If you want to stop receiving messages via Messenger without deactivating your Facebook account, you can just uninstall the Messenger app.

How to Deactivate Your Facebook Profile

Follow the steps below to deactivate your Facebook profile:

1. On the Facebook app, click on the hamburger menu icon in the top right corner of the screen.
2. Scroll down, click on Settings & Privacy, and then click on Select Settings.
3. Under Settings, scroll to the “Your Facebook Information” section and select the “Account ownership and control” option.
4. Click on Deactivation and deletion.
5. Afterward, click on the Deactivate Account option and then on the Continue to Account Deactivation option.
6. You will be prompted to input your password; then click on Continue.
7. Select the reason for deactivating your Facebook account and then click on Continue.
8. You can change the number of days after which your account should be reactivated, but if you want to manually reactivate your account, select the “Don’t reactivate automatically” option in the drop-down menu and then click on Continue.
9. At this point, you will be prompted to either delete groups where you are the only admin or transfer ownership so that they are not unpublished.
10. Click on Deactivate My Account.
11. To reactivate your Facebook account, just log in using your email or mobile number and password.

Now that Facebook has deactivated your account, you can go ahead and deactivate Facebook Messenger if you don’t want your friends to send you messages.

How to Deactivate Facebook Messenger

It’s impossible to deactivate or delete your Facebook Messenger account using your Mac or Windows PC— you can only deactivate Messenger using the mobile app. If you are unable to deactivate Facebook Messenger using the steps below, feel free to contact Facebook support to help you deactivate your Messenger account.

Here’s how to deactivate Facebook Messenger on an iPhone or iPad:

1. Open your chats and click on your profile picture in the top left corner of your screen.
2. In the Options menu, scroll down and click on Account Settings.
3. Scroll down to the “Your Facebook Information” section and click on “Account ownership and control”.
4. Click on “Deactivation and deletion” to choose whether to deactivate or delete your account. To deactivate your account, click on “Continue to Account Deactivation”.
5. At this point, you will be prompted to input your password; then click on Submit.
6. To reactivate your Facebook Messenger account, just log back in using your username and password.

Here’s how to deactivate Facebook Messenger on Android:

1. Open your chats and click on your profile picture in the top left corner of your screen.
2. Click on Legal & Policies.
3. Click on Deactivate Messenger and then on the Deactivate option.
4. To reactivate your Messenger account, log back in with your username and password.

Conclusion

While many people have deactivated or deleted their main Facebook accounts due to privacy reasons, they might not know that their Messenger accounts can still be active. If you want to be completely off the Facebook platform, you have to deactivate Facebook Messenger separately from your Facebook account. After you have deactivated Facebook Messenger, your friends and contacts will no longer be able to see your profile or send you messages. Nonetheless, if you ever want to reactivate your Facebook Messenger account, all you need to do is log into the mobile app using your username and password.

Also, if you need to send large files or folders (for example, a collection of pictures or videos from your Facebook account), we highly recommend using FileWhopper. This app allows you to quickly and safely transfer files and folders of any size to any recipient as long as they are connected to the Internet. FileWhopper doesn’t limit the size of data you can transfer using the platform — for instance, you can choose to send a 3GB video or a 10TB folder.

FileWhopper offers a pay-as-you-go pricing model, so there are no subscription fees and no additional charges, and you only pay for the amount of data you actually send. Immediately you select the file or folder you want to transfer, you will see a price quote. After that, you can make a single, non-recurring payment. If your file or folder is smaller than 5GB, it will be sent free of charge.

On FileWhopper, uploads and downloads happen simultaneously. So your recipient can start downloading a file or folder while you are still uploading it, saving you both a great deal of time, especially when you are on a tight deadline.

With FileWhopper’s top-level encryption, your files and folders are protected during any transfer, making it safe to transfer sensitive and confidential data via the platform. Even FileWhopper employees can’t decrypt your data or even see the name of your file or folder. Your transfer is protected with a password generated on your computer, and FileWhopper has no access to it. You should only share the password with your intended recipient(s).