How to delete your Fandom account
Fandom (formerly Wikia) is the world's largest fan-wiki network, hosting hundreds of thousands of MediaWiki-powered communities covering games, film, TV and anime, alongside sister properties including GameSpot, Metacritic, GameFAQs, TV Guide, Comic Vine and Fanatical. A single Fandom account is a global login that works across every wiki on the network, and Fandom, Inc. stores your username, password, email address, age (or date of birth for accounts created prior to 24 March 2026), any optional first and last name, gender, interests and hobbies, your avatar, and every edit, image upload, blog post, comment, Message Wall post and Discussions post you have ever made — each one permanently attributed to your username in a public revision history. It also logs IP addresses (retained in full for up to 12 months for security and fraud investigation and prevention), device and browser identifiers, inferred location, and advertising identifiers shared with advertising partners, analytics providers and social networks. Crucially, Fandom does not delete accounts: because of how MediaWiki attribution works, the most it offers is a permanent account closure, with true erasure of personal data available only via a separate Right of Deletion privacy request.
Delete your Fandom account, step by step
- 1Before you start, download your data: sign in at https://www.fandom.com/signin, then go to https://community.fandom.com/wiki/Special:DownloadYourData to pull a .CSV containing your username, user ID, real name (if provided), email address, account creation date and a link to your contributions
- 2If you hold Bureaucrat rights on any wiki, check where at https://community.fandom.com/wiki/Special:UserActivity and use Special:UserRights on that wiki to promote a replacement Bureaucrat first — closing your account does not transfer or release those rights
- 3Make sure you are logged in to the exact account you want to close (closing one account does not touch any other accounts you own)
- 4Navigate to https://community.fandom.com/wiki/Special:CloseMyAccount — this is a network-wide special page, so it works from any Fandom wiki, but the Community Central link above is the one Fandom's own support article points to
- 5Read the information at the top of the disabling page to verify that you intend to permanently close the account
- 6Click both confirmation options: the one saying you have read the help page on closing your account, and the one confirming you want your account disabled
- 7Click the 'Close my account' button — you will be automatically logged out
- 8Do not log back in for 30 days. Logging in during this window sends you to the 'Reactivate My Account' page instead, and clicking 'Reactivate My Account' plus the emailed confirmation link cancels the closure
- 9After 30 days the closure is permanent, profile contents are wiped automatically, and Fandom's official support article states the account cannot be restored
- 10Optional but recommended if you want actual erasure rather than a disable: submit Fandom's Right of Deletion form at https://support.fandom.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=360000931094&tf_360017834073=fandom_forget_account and select 'Please "forget" my Fandom Inc. account' under 'Please choose the category that best fits your issue'. Fandom's community help page claims this is limited to California and the EEA excluding the UK, but Fandom's official support article and privacy policy impose no such limit — if you are in the UK or elsewhere, file anyway
What actually happens when you delete
Gets removed
- ✓Your password — scrambled into random gibberish or deleted outright, so the account can no longer be logged into on any wiki in the network
- ✓The 'name' (real name) field set in your account profile
- ✓Your avatar, which is replaced with one of Fandom's default avatars
- ✓Your profile contents, which are wiped automatically once the 30-day grace period expires
- ✓Access to the account across the entire Fandom network — it is flagged as disabled on Special:Contributions and other Special pages
- ✓With an approved Right of Deletion request: your stored personal information is deleted and your username is anonymised in automatically generated logs
Stays behind
- ✗The account itself — Fandom explicitly does not delete accounts from its database; it only disables them
- ✗Your username on every edit, revision history and log entry (blocks, uploads, moves), archived and displayed indefinitely by design
- ✗Every page you created, including your userpage, plus all edits, blog posts, comments, Message Wall posts and Discussions posts
- ✗Any wiki you founded stays open, and any Bureaucrat/admin rights you hold on wikis you did not found are not stripped
- ✗Your username is never released — it stays reserved forever and cannot be reused by you or anyone else
- ✗Blocks placed on your account, which are not lifted by closure
- ✗Your full IP address for up to 12 months for security and fraud investigation and prevention, plus a record of any privacy request you submit (Fandom keeps these to satisfy its own data-processing-record obligations)
- ✗Mentions of your old username written by other users in article text or signatures — anonymisation only touches auto-generated logs
Before you delete
The big gotcha: "closing" a Fandom account is a disable, not a delete. Fandom's help page lists exactly what closure does NOT do — it does not remove your username from edit histories or logs, does not delete pages you created (including your userpage), does not delete your posts/comments/messages, does not lift blocks, does not strip user rights on wikis you didn't found, does not close wikis you founded, does not close your other Fandom accounts, and does not free the username for reuse. Source conflict worth knowing: Fandom's official support article (360021210494) says closure 'is NOT reversible after 30 days' and the account 'cannot be restored,' while the community-editable help wiki claims staff can still restore up to ~3 months via Special:Contact. The official article is the safer guide — treat 30 days as final. Second source conflict: the community help wiki says the Right To Be Forgotten is available only in California and the EEA excluding the UK. Fandom's own support article invokes GDPR or CCPA with no UK exclusion, and the privacy policy's 'YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS' section links the Right of Deletion form under 'applicable law' with no geographic gate. The 'California and the EEA excluding the UK' phrasing does appear in the privacy policy, but in the CHILDREN'S INFORMATION section as a minimum-age threshold (16 vs 13) — the wiki appears to have mis-carried it over. UK and other users should file the form regardless. Even a granted request is limited: Fandom warns its de-identification 'cannot ensure complete or comprehensive de-identification,' public contributions and revision histories are archived and displayed indefinitely by design, and mentions of your old username written by other users are untouched. Fandom retains full IP addresses for up to 12 months for security and fraud investigation and prevention, and keeps a copy of any privacy request you file to satisfy its own data-processing-record obligations. Fandom, Inc. is a Delaware company (corporate number C2935209) at 550 California Street, Suite 830, San Francisco, CA 94104; its Data Protection Officer is reachable at [email protected].
Download your data from Fandom first
Most platforms only honor a data-export request while the account is still active. Do this before you delete.
- 1Sign in at https://www.fandom.com/signin (you must be logged in first)
- 2Go to https://community.fandom.com/wiki/Special:DownloadYourData
- 3Download the .CSV file, which contains your username, user ID, real name (if provided), email address, account creation date and a link to a list of your contributions
- 4Note the export only covers personal information collected in the 12-month period before your request — it is not a full archive of everything you have ever written
Want to take a break instead? Deactivate
Deactivation hides your profile without permanently destroying it. Logging back in restores everything.
- 1Fandom has no separate "deactivate" state — the closure request at Special:CloseMyAccount doubles as one. After you click both confirmation options and the "Close my account" button you are logged out and the account enters a 30-day reversible grace period during which it is unusable. To undo it, log in with your usual credentials within those 30 days, click "Reactivate My Account", and click the link in the confirmation email Fandom sends to your registered address. A softer route Fandom itself recommends: clear your email address in Special:Preferences to stop all Fandom mail, and/or change your password to a random string you don't record, which Fandom says effectively closes the account without any permanent flag on it.
If deletion fails — or you live in the EU, UK, or California
You have a legal right to request erasure of your personal data under GDPR (EU/UK) and CCPA (California). Use these official channels if the self-service flow doesn't work.
Fandom deletion FAQs
Does closing my Fandom account actually delete it?+
No. Fandom's own help page states plainly that 'due to how MediaWiki operates, Fandom will not delete your account from its database entirely.' Special:CloseMyAccount permanently disables the login, scrambles or deletes your password, wipes the profile and swaps in a default avatar — but the account record, your username and all your contributions stay. Fandom's support desk puts it the same way: 'Fandom does not fully remove accounts, but we can disable or rename them.' The only route to actual data erasure is the separate Right of Deletion form.
Can I get my Fandom username back or free it up for someone else?+
No. Fandom is explicit that 'usernames associated with permanently disabled Fandom accounts are not vacated and cannot be reused.' The same applies if you rename instead — Fandom's rename help page notes that 'renaming (or closing) an account does not free up the original name for reuse,' and that your old username 'will remain reserved and cannot be used again. You will not be able to revert back to the old username.' You also only get one rename, ever. If you want a different name on Fandom you have to register a brand-new account.
I closed my account by mistake — how do I undo it?+
Log back in with your normal credentials within 30 days. Instead of the close page you'll be sent to 'Reactivate My Account'; click that button, then click the confirmation link in the email Fandom sends to your registered address. Treat 30 days as a hard deadline: Fandom's official support article says the process 'is NOT reversible after 30 days have passed' and that the account 'cannot be restored.' Fandom's community-editable help wiki additionally claims staff can restore an account for up to about 3 months via Special:Contact, but that contradicts Fandom's own staff documentation and is not something to rely on — if you want the account, reactivate inside the 30 days.
Will my edits and comments be removed when I close my account?+
No, and this is not negotiable. Fandom's support desk states that closure 'will not remove your contributions from a given Fandom community, as these contributions belong to the community as a whole,' and its privacy policy says public contributions to Fandom community sites 'are archived and displayed indefinitely by design; the transparency of each contribution and revision history is critical for efficacy and trustworthiness.' Closing your account removes none of your edits, uploads, pages, comments, Message Wall posts or Discussions posts, and it does not delete your userpage.
How do I invoke GDPR or CCPA to make Fandom actually erase my data?+
Use Fandom's Right of Deletion ticket at support.fandom.com (ticket form 360000931094) and select 'Please "forget" my Fandom Inc. account' in the category dropdown, filling in every section. This is the exact form Fandom's privacy policy links under 'Request Deletion.' You can also email [email protected], or [email protected] to reach Fandom's Data Protection Officer directly. Fandom's community help wiki claims the right is limited to California and the EEA excluding the UK, but Fandom's own support article grounds it in 'European (GDPR) data protection law or the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)' with no UK carve-out, and the privacy policy's rights section applies it under 'applicable law' with no geographic gate — so file regardless of where you are. Fandom will verify your identity first, and even a granted request only anonymises your username in auto-generated logs; the policy warns its 'de-identification processes cannot ensure complete or comprehensive de-identification.'
I have a GameSpot, Metacritic, GameFAQs, TV Guide or Fanatical account too — does closing my Fandom account cover those?+
No. Special:CloseMyAccount covers Fandom wiki accounts (and Muthead) only. Fandom's own privacy article routes each sister property to a separate help desk: Fanatical at support.fanatical.com, GameFAQs at gamefaqs.gamespot.com/help, and GameSpot, Metacritic, Comic Vine and TV Guide through their own Zendesk portals via the 'Submit a request' link. Be aware Fandom's deletion article and its data-download article list slightly different Zendesk hostnames for GameSpot and Metacritic, so start from whichever article matches your request. You must file separately for each. Closing your Fandom account also does not close any other Fandom wiki accounts you personally own.
Is there anything I should do before closing, or a softer alternative?+
Fandom suggests three alternatives: simply stop using the account (optionally leaving a note on your user or talk page so the community knows), clear your email address in Special:Preferences so it stops emailing you, or change the password to something impossible to remember — which Fandom says 'will effectively close your account' without a permanent flag. Before closing for real, download your data from Special:DownloadYourData (the export only covers personal information collected in the 12 months before your request, so it is not a full archive of everything you have written), and hand over Bureaucrat rights on any wiki where you're the sole Bureaucrat, since closure leaves those wikis without an owner.
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