How to Delete a Facebook Page (or Unpublish It Instead)

To delete a Facebook Page, switch into the Page as someone with full control, open the Page’s settings, find the option for deactivating or deleting the Page, and choose delete. Facebook gives you a short grace period during which you can cancel. If you might want the Page back, deactivate (unpublish) it instead: it disappears from public view but keeps its content, followers and settings. Download the Page’s data before you delete, because deletion is permanent once the grace period ends.

Deleting a Page is a different job from deleting your personal account. This guide covers the difference, the access you need, the checks worth doing first, and what deletion does and doesn’t remove, including reviews, messages and search results.

Delete or deactivate?

Facebook gives Page owners two ways to take a Page down. Older help pages call the reversible option “unpublishing”; newer ones call it deactivating. The idea is the same.

	Deactivate (unpublish)	Delete
Visible to the public	No	No
Content, followers and settings	Kept	Permanently removed after the grace period
Recommendations and reviews	Hidden with the Page	Removed with the Page
Page name and username	Still yours	Gone with the Page
Can you undo it?	Yes, reactivate when you like	Only during the grace period
Best for	A pause, a rebrand in progress, a seasonal business	A business that has closed for good, or a duplicate Page

If the problem is a duplicate Page, merging may be better than deleting. Facebook lets you merge Pages that represent the same thing, which combines followers into one Page. If the problem is a few bad posts or comments, you can delete or hide those without touching the Page itself.

Who can delete a Facebook Page

Only someone with full control of the Page can delete it. On the current Pages experience that means a person with Facebook access and full control; on older Pages it was the admin role. People with partial access, such as editors, moderators or advertisers, can’t delete the Page.

• If you created the Page but lost access, use Facebook’s Page access recovery options, or ask another person with full control to restore your access.
• If a former employee or agency holds full control, ask them to add you back or transfer control. If the Page is connected to a business portfolio in Meta’s business tools, access may be managed there.
• If nobody with full control is reachable, Facebook’s help center has routes for requesting access to a Page. Be ready to show you represent the business.

If your Page has been hijacked, don’t try to delete it from a compromised account. Our guide on what to do when a business social media account is hacked covers recovery first.

Before you delete: a checklist

1. Download the Page’s data. Facebook offers a download tool for Pages as well as profiles. Save posts, photos, videos and any messages you want to keep, especially customer conversations you may need for records.
2. Save your reviews and recommendations. If customers left positive recommendations, screenshot or export them. Once the Page is gone, so are they, and some businesses like to keep them for their own records.
3. Check connected tools. Ads accounts, Instagram accounts, shops, booking tools, chat plugins on your website and third-party schedulers may all rely on the Page. Disconnect or reassign them first.
4. Stop or settle ads. Turn off running ads and check billing so nothing charges after the Page is gone.
5. Tell your audience if it makes sense. A final post saying where to find you now, such as a new Page, website or phone number, is kinder to customers than a Page that just vanishes.
6. Update links. Remove the Page link from your website, email signatures, Google Business Profile and printed materials.

How to delete a Facebook Page

Meta moves Page settings around fairly often, so these steps describe the route rather than exact button names. Facebook’s help center has the current wording.

1. Log in to the personal account that has full control of the Page.
2. Switch into the Page, using the profile switcher.
3. Open settings, then look for the Page’s privacy or Page information section.
4. Find the option for deactivation and deletion.
5. Choose delete, continue through the screens and confirm with your password if asked.
6. Note the date Facebook says the deletion becomes final, and don’t reactivate the Page before then unless you’ve changed your mind.

To deactivate instead, follow the same path and choose deactivate. You can reactivate from the same place later.

If you’re also leaving Facebook personally, our guide on how to delete your Facebook account covers the profile side and the loose ends it leaves.

What deleting a Page removes, and what it doesn’t

What goes

• The Page itself, its posts, photos, videos and events.
• Recommendations and reviews that customers left on the Page.
• The Page’s followers and its inbox.

What stays

• Messages in customers’ inboxes. People you messaged as the Page can usually still see those conversations on their side.
• Posts by other people. Posts that tagged or mentioned your business in groups or on profiles stay up.
• Reviews on other platforms. Your Google Business Profile, Yelp listing and other review sites are unaffected.
• Search results. The Page can show in Google for a while after deletion. Once the Page is gone, the result usually drops out after a recrawl, and you can speed that up with Google’s outdated content tool, as explained in our guide to removing outdated content from Google.
• Screenshots and copies. Anything captured by other people or archive sites is outside Facebook’s control.

Don’t delete a Page to escape bad reviews

A common reason people search for how to delete a Facebook Page is a run of negative recommendations. Deleting does remove them, but it also removes every positive one, your followers and your history, and customers usually find the complaints somewhere else, such as Google.

Better options usually include:

• Reply calmly and publicly. A good reply often does more for future customers than the review itself does harm.
• Report recommendations that break Facebook’s rules, such as spam, harassment or reviews from people who were never customers.
• Turn off recommendations if they really don’t suit your business. Facebook has generally let Page owners switch the reviews section off in the Page’s settings, which hides existing recommendations without deleting the Page.
• Build more genuine recommendations from real customers. Our guide to getting Facebook recommendations covers how to ask without breaking the rules.

A worked example

This is an illustrative scenario, not a real client. Marisol ran a small catering business with a Facebook Page. She’s now closing the business to take a full-time job, and she doesn’t want an abandoned Page with unanswered messages sitting under her name.

1. She downloads the Page’s data and saves customer messages she might need for tax records.
2. She screenshots her best recommendations for her portfolio.
3. She disconnects the Page from the linked Instagram account and turns off an old boosted post that was still running.
4. She publishes a short goodbye post thanking customers and leaves it up for two weeks.
5. She deletes the Page and marks the final deletion date in her calendar.
6. A month later the Page still appears in Google for her business name. She submits it through Google’s outdated content tool and it drops out.

Common mistakes

• Deleting when you meant to pause. If there’s any chance you’ll need the Page, deactivate it.
• Forgetting the data download. Messages and reviews can’t be retrieved after deletion.
• Leaving ads or integrations running. Check billing and connected tools first.
• Deleting because of reviews. It removes the good with the bad and doesn’t touch other sites.
• Reactivating during the grace period by accident. That cancels the deletion.

If a closed or abandoned Page, or a fake Page using your business name, is causing wider damage, our social media reputation management service can help sort out what to keep, fix or remove.

Frequently asked questions

How long does it take to delete a Facebook Page?

Facebook schedules the deletion and gives you a grace period to change your mind. The Page is hidden during that time and removed after it ends. Facebook shows the exact date when you confirm.

Can I delete a Facebook Page I'm not an admin of?

No. Only someone with full control can delete a Page. If the Page is about you or your business and is fake or misleading, report it to Facebook instead.

Does deleting a Facebook Page delete the reviews?

Yes, recommendations on the Page are removed along with it. Reviews on Google and other sites are not affected.

What's the difference between unpublishing and deleting a Page?

Unpublishing, now usually called deactivating, hides the Page but keeps everything so you can bring it back. Deleting removes it permanently once the grace period ends.