If you have used Signal before, you are well aware of its privacy features and Signal Foundation‘s commitment to keeping their users’ data safe. While the messenger offers a lot of very useful features and lacks on almost no way compared to other private messengers (like Telegram or TeleGuard for example) you may have reasons to abandon it still. Deleting your Signal account is easy, and in this article I will provide you with practical guidance on how to quickly and effectively delete your private Signal account. This article focuses on the Signal iOS app, but should apply to the Android app as well.
Why you would want to Delete your Signal Account
Signal, like any other messenger, holds at least a minimum of data on you. Be it your phone number, your IP address(es), device identifiers, or contacts you interact with. While for legitimate interactions there’s no problem in this, recent reports on data leaks and hacker takeovers make it concerning that any kind of data about you is stored on remote servers.
Reasons for deleting your instant messenger account could hence include
- Personal data safety: You don’t want your data to be spread around servers, prone to leaking when servers get hacked
- Switching messengers: When a new messenger appeals better to you (and your peers use that one over your current one), you would want to switch, cleaning up after yourself
- Getting rid of stalkers: Opening a new account and ditching your old one can help getting rid of stalkers that know your previous username
For whatever reason you want to delete your Signal account, you’ve come to the right place. Signal, as an app that is distributed in the EU, needs to comply with the GDPR legislation in that region. Similar legislations may apply in other areas of the world (like e.g., the Californian data protection laws CCPA and CPRA). Let’s look at the concrete steps you need to take to delete it.
Saving your Account Data before you Delete your Private Signal Account
Before you unrecoverably delete your Signal account, you may want to download your account data for later reference. If you’re not interested in this, you can skip right ahead to the next section.
To download your data (as already described in detail in this previous article), you go to the “Account” section in the ‘Settings” screen and choose “Your Account Data” to download the data in either .txt or .json format.
Refer to that previous article on what options you have, and what’s included in the downloaded file.
Deleting the Signal Account from the iOS App
To delete the account from your iOS app, open the “Settings” screen. There, choose “Account“. This opens a new screen that asks you to confirm the account deletion. For this to happen, you need to enter your phone number you used to initially sign up for the account.
Once entered, you will be asked one more time if you really want to delete your account. You won’t need to confirm the phone number with an SMS code or anything like that.
After this, the app will terminate immediately, and your account will be deleted. Be careful with this, as your account is not recoverable after this point. If you need any data from your account, be sure to store any media files you want to keep and download your account data as pointed out above.
Conclusion
You now know what deleting your private Signal account from the iOS app effectively and quickly takes. Deleting old account data is a vital step in preserving your online privacy. This is true for all instant messengers (and beyond). I reported on how to delete your data from Telegram and TeleGuard before (and what that means).
Once you deleted your Signal account, you may want to give Telegram or TeleGuard a try. They are great options for communicating securely and privately and both come with appealing features on their own.
If you enjoyed this article and want to add your own thoughts and experiences, comment below to get the conversation started!