How to delete your Goodreads account
Goodreads is the largest book-tracking and reviews social network, with around 150 million members. Owned by Amazon since 2013, Goodreads stores every book on your shelves (read, currently-reading, want-to-read, and custom shelves), reviews, ratings, comments, friends, reading challenges, quotes you saved, and (for authors) your author bio and reader Q&A. Reviews are widely indexed by Google and used by Amazon to power book recommendations.
Delete your Goodreads account, step by step
- 1Sign in to goodreads.com on a desktop browser
- 2Click your avatar > 'Account settings'
- 3Open the 'Account' tab
- 4Scroll to the bottom and click 'Delete my account'
- 5Pick a reason and click 'Continue'
- 6Confirm — account and shelves are deleted immediately
What actually happens when you delete
Gets removed
- ✓Your username, profile, avatar, and bio
- ✓All shelves: Read, Currently Reading, Want to Read, and custom shelves
- ✓Reviews, ratings, status updates, and reading challenges
- ✓Friends, groups, and book club memberships
- ✓Quotes you saved, favorite genres, and recommendations
Stays behind
- ✗Reviews you wrote may persist cached on Google for weeks
- ✗Comments you left on other users' reviews (re-attributed)
- ✗Records Amazon retains for tax, fraud, and legal compliance
- ✗Book pages and author pages remain — only YOUR data is removed
- ✗Goodreads quotes added to the public quotes database stay attributed to a deleted user
Before you delete
Goodreads deletion is immediate. Export your shelves and reviews FIRST — you can pull a CSV with every book, rating, and date you added/finished it. Reviews you wrote may briefly persist as cached Google results. Deleting Goodreads does NOT delete your Amazon account even though they share a parent. Author accounts have additional considerations: claimed-author profiles are removed but the underlying book pages remain.
Download your data from Goodreads first
Most platforms only honor a data-export request while the account is still active. Do this before you delete.
- 1Open My Books > 'Import and export' (or go to goodreads.com/review/import)
- 2Scroll to 'Export'
- 3Click 'Export Library'
- 4A CSV of every book, shelf, rating, review, and date is downloaded immediately
- 5Save this CSV — you can import it to The StoryGraph, Libib, or self-hosted tools later
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.
Goodreads deletion FAQs
Will deleting Goodreads also delete my Amazon account?+
No. Goodreads is owned by Amazon but each is a separate account. Deleting Goodreads does not affect your Amazon shopping account, Kindle library, or Prime.
How do I export my Goodreads library before deleting?+
Go to My Books > Import/Export > 'Export Library' to download a CSV with every book you've ever shelved, rated, or reviewed. The CSV is compatible with The StoryGraph, Libib, and most book-tracking alternatives, so you can migrate your reading history before closing.
Will my Goodreads reviews stay on Google after deletion?+
Cached copies can persist on Google for weeks. Once the URLs return 404, Google drops them on its next crawl. Use Google's 'Remove outdated content' tool to speed up removal of specific review URLs.
What happens to my Goodreads Author profile?+
Author profiles are removed with the user account, but the underlying book pages remain (with the author's name still listed). To remove an author profile without deleting your user account, contact Goodreads support — there's a separate flow for unclaiming an author profile.
Can I delete just my reviews without deleting my Goodreads account?+
Yes. Open each review, edit it, and click delete. No bulk-delete button exists; you'd need a browser script for large catalogs. Alternatively, set your account to private (Settings > Privacy) to hide everything without deletion.
What about reading challenge progress and badges?+
Reading challenge history is erased with the account. Export the CSV first if you want a permanent record of how many books you read each year.
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