You can't always wipe the slate clean and start over in real life, but you can certainly do it on Facebook! Sometimes it's easier to just create a new account than to fiddle with privacy settings or clean out your friends list on your current one. This article will show you how to create a new account and dump the old one.
Method1
EditCreating a New Account
1If you have an existing account, you will need to delete it before creating a new one. See Close the Old Account below before proceeding. Otherwise, continue to the next step.
2Go to the Facebook website. If you have an existing account, make sure you are logged out first.
- You will see this signup form:
- Fill it out completely, make sure all the information is accurate, then click the Sign Up button.
3Find your friends. Facebook will next ask you to search your various email accounts for friends. You are welcome to do this at this time, or click on Skip this step at the bottom, and continue with the sign-up process.
4Fill in profile information. Step 2 of the sign-up process is filling out basic profile info: High school, college, and employer. Again, you may choose to fill this out, or skip this step.
5Plug in your mug. Now's your chance to shine to the world! Upload a photo from your computer, or take a photo with your web cam. However you do it, Facebook will take it. Of course, like the other steps, you can choose to skip this as well.
6Your new account is ready! Remember—don't forget to like us!
Method2
EditClose the Old Account
1Download your information. Having a copy of all your information—from our profile info to your friend's list and photos—is never a bad thing to have as a backup. To do this:
- Click the account menu icon (white triangle) at the top right of any Facebook page.
- Choose Account Settings
- Click on Download a copy of your Facebook data
- Click Start My Archive
- This will take a while, especially if you have a lot of photos and are active on Facebook.
2Clean out your existing account. When your archive is complete, empty out all fields that aren't required, and delete. For required fields, use names that are clearly fake (Frondheim Dingleschmidt) or hopelessly general (John Smith).
- If you want to reuse your phone and email information in the new account, change those to something meaningless before you begin the deletion process. Facebook will not let you have multiple accounts with the same information.
3Create a temporary email account. To delete your primary email account, you must first create a new one—Facebook will verify the email address, so you can't just make one up.
- Create a new browser tab (Control-T on a PC, Command-T on a Mac).
- Go to a free email provider, such as Google or Yahoo
- Create a new account. It can be a normal email account that you might want to use for real at some point, or a temporary one you will use once and trash. One advantage of an alternate email account is that you can use it for all spam-generating sites—you never have to check it, so anything that is in it will always be spam!
4Add the new email account to Facebook. In your soon-to-be-defunct Facebook account, go to General Account Settings, edit the email settings, and click on Add another email.
- Enter your new email address, and your password, and click Save Changes.
- You will be sent a confirmation email to your new email address. Be sure you accept the new email. You will be returned to Facebook's account settings page, where you can now make the new email the primary.
- Click the Primary email: button next to the new email address, enter your password, and click Save Changes. This will close the edit window for your email. Re-open it, and you will see your new email address on top, as the primary email. To the right of your old (real) email address, it will say Remove. Click that, and your old email is cleared out.
5Create your new account. See above, under Creating A New Account, for the steps to accomplish this.
6Transfer ownership and admin rights. You may be the admin of one or more groups or pages. Before you delete your old account, set up your new account to have admin rights as well.- From the left side column of your Facebook timeline, click on the group or page you administer. It will open in the Admin Panel.
- From the Edit Page menu, select Admin Roles.
- Add your new account as an administrator.
- Tags: open facebook
