How to Delete Yourself from the Internet

It's not as difficult to delete yourself from the internet as you've heard that one computer nerd friend of yours tell you.

Technically, your nerdy friend is right; you can never completely delete yourself from the internet; there will always be some trace of you in some database, archive, or personal computer of random people that downloaded your info. However, that's not what most people are even trying to accomplish when they think of "deleting themselves from the internet."

Most people are simply trying to remove themselves from the public-facing internet. In other words, they don't want to be found from a simple Google search or more likely, just want to control what people see when their name is searched.

Whatever your goal, due to improved privacy awareness and protections, it's actually pretty easy in 2025 to remove your info online.

There are certainly more advanced techniques to consider, but we'll focus on keeping this guide simple in the steps you should take:

0. Patch the Leak. Before anything else, you may want to start by stopping. Stop giving out your home address that is. At least stop giving out your home address paired with your real name. Use a PO Box, virtual address, work address, church address, anything other than where you actually sleep at night. But, what about Amazon, DoorDash, and Uber you ask? There's no legal requirement for you to provide these services with the name that appears on your birth certificate. You can provide them with any name you like or no name at all (in many cases). As long as the address is correct and payment clears, services can be fulfilled and you've done nothing wrong.
1. Google Yourself. This may be the most obvious step and even feel kind of amateurish, but anyone looking for you: a nosy neighbor, an ex, a stalker, criminal, potential new boss, potential new landlord, whoever, this is where they'll start and so should you. Unless you have an extremely common name, you should search just your first and last name, browse through every single result, skip anything you don't mind (a LinkedIn profile you want people to see for example), and copy down or open in a new browser tab anything that reveals too many personal details (address, phone, date of birth, etc.) or that you find objectionable for whatever reason.
2. Requesting Removal (Easy). Now that you have your list of URLs which contain content about you that you want taken down, it's time to start sending out requests. As odd as it sounds, People Search Engines, as sleazy as they are, are actually the easiest to remove your data from. Both for legal reasons and because they don't want to pay a human support staff to do it manually, most of these sites have automated the process of removing your listing yourself instantly, and it usually only requires verifying an email address.
3. Requesting Removal (Medium). Next up is blogs, forums, social media, and other types of platforms. These will probably just be comments you made in the past. If you can regain access to your old accounts, you can often just delete your own data. However, many sites lock editing/deleting after a short period of time, if they offered that option at all to begin with. If not, a simple and friendly email to the site owner is the next step. No matter how anxious you feel, it's vital that you ask politely. If you're too aggressive, they may ignore you, decline to help you, or worse. Wait at least a week for a response and keep checking the URL. Often site owners will delete the requested info without responding to you.
4. Requesting Removal (Difficult). If for a given website, you're not able to find a way to opt out, contact support, or the site owner is unresponsive, says no, or is otherwise hostile, it's time to go above their head. This will mean contacting the abuse department of their host, domain registar, or other service they're a customer of and requesting removal at that level. While an informal and polite request may be enough, usually a formal legal complaint is required at this point. A GDPR, CCPA, or DMCA request may suffice.
5. Requesting Removal (Last Resort). While getting your info removed at the source is always the goal, you might run into a wall. Maybe the website is hosted in a different country, maybe it's simply impossible to contact anyone who can or is willing to help, maybe it's decentralized in some way. Whatever the case, you might at least be able to remove the URL from Google's search index.
6. Deleting Accounts & Going Private. You should consider deleting any old accounts that you no longer use. Now it's time to talk about Facebook, which is by far the biggest vulnerability to virtually everyone on the planet. From your Facebook profile, any snoop can learn just about everything about your life. If it's absolutely impossible for you to delete your personal Facebook account because you'd lose contact with friends and family, you should consider locking it down as much as possible. In most cases, even the only "Friends of Friends" setting will do little to protect your info. All a snoop has to do is send friend requests to a bunch of your friends until one of them inevitably accepts and they're in.

Whatever level of removing yourself from the internet you decide is right for you, it can feel overwhelming. If you're really new to privacy, you may be shocked at just how much info is available about you. There's no way to temper your anxiety completely, but try not to panic. It's not personal, and it's not just you. Nearly everyone is exposed and it takes effort to stop being exposed. It may feel like a daunting task, but take it slow, one day at a time, and just chip away at it and take back control of your online presence. It is possible.