The Ultimate Guide to Eradicating Your Unused Online Accounts for Good

Key Takeaways

To safeguard your personal data, identity details, and credit card numbers from potential cyber threats or data breaches, it is recommended to deactivate any outdated accounts. You can verify if any of your passwords have been compromised by visiting haveibeenpwned.com.

To enhance security, utilize password managers or explore your email to locate inactive accounts that can be discarded. In cases where deletion is not possible, eradicate financial and personal data, and contemplate obscuring the account by replacing the email address and personal particulars with arbitrary information to minimize the potential for data breach.

You've likely enlisted in numerous online services that you presently no longer utilize. The majority of these accounts are probably still active, and they likely store a combination of your personal information, identity particulars, and credit card numbers. Avoid leaving tempting opportunities for attackers.

Why You Should Close Those Old Accounts

Living in the present era, data breaches have become commonplace. In the event that a service experiences a breach and discloses all the personal data you have shared with it, what are the potential consequences? Furthermore, what if a developer were to act against protocol and misuse stored credit card details, inundate you with spam, or even sell their service to an untrustworthy entity?

If you use the same passwords for multiple sites, a password leak on one site can lead to unauthorized access to your accounts on other sites. Even if you do not use the same passwords, the personal information linked to your inactive accounts may still provide attackers with answers to your security questions on other websites.

To safeguard your privacy, it is wise to eliminate your private data from services you no longer utilize. Instead of leaving them inactive, it is advisable to close these outdated accounts.

How to Find Your Old Accounts

Step one is finding those old accounts. Here are several tips that can help you find them:

Check Your Password Manager: If you utilize a password management tool to store and organize your login information, it essentially serves as a repository of all the accounts you have active. Even if you rely on your browser's integrated password manager, it could retain information for numerous accounts. Examine the roster of saved login details to identify any accounts that are no longer in use.

Explore Your Email: By conducting a search in your email using keywords like "welcome," "verify," "your account," "free trial," and other phrases commonly found in "Welcome" emails sent by various services, you may stumble upon a multitude of old accounts that you have completely forgotten about.

Please check if you have linked your account to Facebook, Google, or Twitter when signing up for various services. It is important to review the list of apps connected to your account. However, note that simply disconnecting the connection will not delete your account from the other service.

To determine if your email address has been involved in any data breaches, visit Have I Been Pwned?. This service will inform you about any leaks your email address may have been a part of, including publicly available ones that have exposed your data.

How to Delete Your Old Accounts

Now you've got one or more accounts you want to delete. Actually deleting the account(s) should be the easy part — but unfortunately, it often isn't.

Here are some tips for finding out how to actually delete an account:

Search for the name of the website or service and "delete account" using a web search engine like Google or DuckDuckGo.

Please visit JustDelete.me, a useful online resource that provides instructions on how to delete various online accounts. Browse the support section of the website to find guidance on account deletion. It may be helpful to review their privacy policy for detailed information on data deletion timeframes and how to request account deletion.

Please contact the website's support and request the deletion of your account. In certain situations, you may attempt to log in to your account and realize that the service has automatically deleted your inactive account, or the service may no longer be available.

Unfortunately, there are some services that do not offer any means to delete your previous accounts. However, if you reside in California, you are protected by the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA). Consequently, if you request a company to erase your data, they are legally obligated to comply. Nonetheless, this does not guarantee a smooth and hassle-free process.

What If You Can't Delete an Account?

If you are unable to delete an account, there are steps you can take to safeguard your personal information. Log in to the account and consider implementing the following measures:

Ensure the removal of any stored financial and payment details, such as saved credit card numbers, that could enable unauthorized purchases for anyone having access to the account.

Please make sure to remove any personal data that you have saved in the application. This includes any old notes, tasks, or calendar events if you have an old account in a note-taking app, to-do app, or calendar service. It is advised to export and download any important information before deleting it. Additionally, go to the account's settings and remove any saved personal identification details such as your name, birthday, shipping address, and other related information.

If you remove all the personal data you can from the account, attackers won't be able to get much data in a breach.

Try Anonymizing Accounts You Can't Delete

Once all your personal information is removed from the account, you should consider "anonymizing" it by replacing the email address and other personal details with random and insignificant information.

For instance, if you have an account under the name "Sarah" and the email address sarah@example.com, you can change the name to "Jake" and use a nonsensical email address, such as one obtained from an anonymous email service like Mailinator.

Instead of having an empty account linked to your real name and email address, there is now an empty account associated with a fictitious name and email address.

Consider the potential consequences if the website's user database were to be compromised: Hackers would only gain access to bogus details such as a phony name, email address, date of birth, and the like. This information holds no value.

Assuming you've erased all your other personal details, this can be almost as good as deleting the account. Sometimes, it's all you can do.

Think Twice Before Signing up in the Future

Deleting accounts can be a challenging task, as you may come across numerous accounts that are either difficult or impossible to delete. If you have been using the internet for a long time, it is likely that you have accumulated several old accounts that you no longer use.

It is advisable to be more cautious and discerning when creating accounts going forward. Before signing up for a new account, it is worth evaluating whether it is truly necessary or beneficial. Consider if you genuinely want to provide your data to that particular service.

By simply reducing the number of accounts you create in the future by half, you can minimize your privacy vulnerability. This means fewer opportunities for your personal information to be compromised.