Had enough of Twitter, Elon Musk, and all that chatter? Here’s how to drop off

If you are all sorts of fed up with Twitter and you cannot bear to read through one more thread about Elon Musk, don’t worry. You aren’t alone and you have a way out. It is possible to go off Twitter for a bit, or permanently, to give yourself the break you need. And of course, there are some rules here about how this can and should play out.

Now, it’s important for you to understand that Twitter does not allow you to delete your account right away. The platform gives you some time to reconsider your decision about deactivating/deleting your account, a “cool down period” of sorts.

Once you deactivate your Twitter account, it might feel like it’s gone for good since your profile (name, username) and tweets will not be accessible on Twitter by anyone, but that’s not the case. Your account will still exist and you can always retrieve it if and when you want.

But there’s a timeline for this retrieval. You get 30 days to reclaim/reactivate your account from the time you hit the “Deactivate” button. Thirty days might seem like a lot once you hit that button, but it isn’t. If you don’t decide what you want to do with your account before this time is up, you will lose your account permanently and if you plan to get back on Twitter after that, you will have to start from scratch.

If you are still reading at this point that means you really have had it with the tweets, retweets, quote tweets, and likes – so, here’s how you can deactivate your Twitter account:

• On the Twitter web app, click on “More” from the left-side menu.
• Click on “Settings and privacy”.
• On your smartphone app on iOS or Android, tap on your profile icon and then on “Settings and privacy”.
• On the web app or mobile app, wherever you are, choose “Account”/”Your account”.
• Then click on “Deactivate your account”.

Once you do this, the platform gives you a whole explanation about what it means to deactivate your account and what are the alternative options. Alternatives include changing your username on Twitter for starters.
Twitter also lists some actions you need to carry out before you deactivate your account – like moving your @username and email address to a new Twitter account before deactivating the current one.

It will also ask you if you want to download your account data. If you do want to, you will have to do it before deactivation. Twitter provides instructions regarding how this can be done.

Once you’ve done all this, you will then need to enter your Twitter password and click on “Deactivate”. And that’s it. You are done. You have 30 days now to change your mind. Let us know how it goes.