We all have weird friends on Facebook. While some regularly post hateful content, others don’t use Facebook at all. Worse still, some continue to attack you with invitations to the game. At some point, we want to unfriend these unfamiliar characters. While unfriending someone is easy, if that person has deactivated their account, how would you unfriend them?
Well, there exists a way that allows you to delete deactivated profiles. You will need the help of the Facebook website to perform this terrible act as it is not possible to remove those profiles from the mobile app.
Before jumping into the real action, though, let’s step back a bit and understand what happens when someone deactivates their account.
What happens to a deactivated Facebook account
Disabling a Facebook profile will disable it for a temporary period of time. That is, the profile is deactivated, their photos and other things on Facebook are hidden from other users. Facebook does not delete their data including photos, posts, friends, videos etc. All that data will reappear whenever the same profile is reactivated.
Unfriend with deactivated profiles
To remove deactivated profiles from your Facebook account, you need to go to the Friends section first. Then find and identify the ghost profiles you want to delete, then unfriend them.
Here are the detailed steps.
1. Open the Facebook Friends section
Accessing the Friends section is important because you cannot see the profile without a Facebook search.
You can view the Friends section in the following ways:
Method 1: From your profile
Open the Facebook website and access your profile by clicking on your profile picture icon present in the top bar. Then click the Friends tab that appears below your cover photo.
Method 2: From the Homepage
On the home page of the Facebook website, click the Friend List option found in the left sidebar under Explore. On the next screen, click the See All Friends option at the top.
Method 3: Use Direct Link
Open this link and it will take you directly to the Friends section.
2. Find and identify deactivated profiles
Now that you can see all your Facebook friends, it’s time to find and identify deactivated profiles.
How to identify deactivated account
Deactivated profiles cannot be accessed via search, as mentioned earlier. So under Friends you will have to search for certain clues.
For starters, deactivated profiles have no profile pictures. Instead, they have the default Facebook silhouette. However, not every profile with a silhouette indicates that it has been disabled. Some people may have deleted their profile picture.
Another way to identify deactivated profiles is to look for the total number of mutual friends next to their name. If the profile has a default Facebook picture and doesn’t show mutual friends, it means the account has been disabled.
Finally, the easiest way to know is to click on the profile with the default Facebook image. If the profile is available, you will be taken there. However, if it has been deactivated, you will get a pop-up stating that the account has been deactivated.
Find deactivated accounts
Once you know how to identify deactivated accounts, it’s time to find them. Two scenarios arise: find a Facebook friend who has deactivated their account, or find all deactivated profiles.
In the first case, when you know who you want to unfriend — your ex, for example, use the search box. Basically, find the person by entering their name in the ‘Search your friends’ box available on the Friends page.
To find all or more deactivated profiles at once, you will have to repeat the above method. That is, you will have to type each alphabet AZ in the search query and look for profiles that have stopped working. You can also scroll through your friends list to find such profiles. Sadly, there is no dedicated or simple way to achieve it.
3. Delete deactivated friends
Finally, once you’ve found the deactivated profile, tap the Friend drop-down option available next to their name and select Unfriend from the menu.
Alternatively, click on their name below Friends and you’ll be presented with a pop-up. Click Unfriend.
What happens when you unfriend people you have deactivated
Nothing special. Just like you delete any other friend, the deactivated profile will be removed from your list. You can’t view, comment on, or like each other’s private posts or view stories when the other person reactivates it. If you want to do all of those things, then you’ll have to add them again.
Should you delete deactivated friends?
I recommend not doing so unless you don’t want to be friends with them in the future. That’s because profile deactivation is a temporary task for someone else who hasn’t deleted their account. So when that person returns to Facebook, *surprise surprise* you will no longer be friends with them.
Also, how does their quiet presence inside the Friends section bother you? So unless those ghost profiles really worry you, the answer is no.
Is it time to say goodbye?
So that’s how you can remove those ghost profiles from your account. But if you decide to keep them on your friends list, there are other ways to stop interacting with those profiles. For instance, you can hide or unfollow them, or put them on a restricted list. Luckily, since there’s no feature to unfriend you or notify them, you can live a happy life without deleting them.
Next up: Do you want to block someone on Facebook but don’t know the consequences? Read the article to know what happens after blocking and unblocking someone on Facebook.
Categories: How to
Source: thpttranhungdao.edu.vn/en/
