How to delete your LiveJournal account
LiveJournal is one of the original blogging and fandom platforms, launched in 1999 and home to tens of millions of registered journals — many written under a real name in the 2000s and forgotten since. Because your personal journal *is* your account, LiveJournal holds every entry you ever posted (including friends-locked and private ones), every comment you left in other people's journals and in communities, your friends and subscription lists, tags, userpics, custom journal styles, and your profile page with whatever birthday, location, contact details and interests you filled in. The privacy policy for the current operator, LLC "SIM" of Moscow, lists the data it processes as surname, first name, patronymic, sex, date of birth, email address, login and password, network (IP) address, device information, cookies and user identifier, usage data, and any linked third-party service accounts. The policy is written to Russian data-protection law and states that where its English translation and the Russian text disagree, the Russian version prevails.
Delete your LiveJournal account, step by step
- 1Log in at livejournal.com with the account you want to delete. The Account Status page is login-gated and acts on whichever account you are signed in as, so you must be able to authenticate as the account owner. If you have forgotten the password, use "Forgot password" on the login page first.
- 2Back up your content first if you want it. Go to the Export Journal page at https://www.livejournal.com/export.bml and download your entries as CSV or XML. LiveJournal's FAQ documents that the tool exports one month of your journal at a time, does not include comments, and that exported files cannot be reimported into LiveJournal — reposting means doing it manually, entry by entry.
- 3If you pay for a Professional package on recurring billing, turn automatic payments off first. LiveJournal's FAQ on automatic payments manages them from the Account Status page itself (https://www.livejournal.com/accountstatus.bml); general billing settings live under https://www.livejournal.com/manage/account/. Professional service time is neither transferable nor refundable, so you will not get money back for unused time.
- 4Go to the Account Status page at https://www.livejournal.com/accountstatus.bml
- 5If you also want the comments and entries you posted in *other* journals and communities removed, tick the corresponding checkboxes on that page. If you leave them unticked, that content stays visible under your (now deleted) username.
- 6Click the "Delete my account and journal" button.
- 7Your journal and profile are hidden immediately. LiveJournal states that by deleting your journal you are automatically cancelling your account and unsubscribing from LiveJournal. The account sits in "deleted" status.
- 8To reverse it, log in and return to the same Account Status page within 3 years and undelete — LiveJournal states that all of your entries, comments and settings will be restored. After 3 years in deleted status the account becomes eligible for purging, which LiveJournal states is permanent and cannot be reverted.
- 9If you run a community, note that a community is its own account with its own Account Status page. Deleting your personal journal does not delete it — log in as the community and delete it separately, or transfer maintainership first.
What actually happens when you delete
Gets removed
- ✓Your journal and profile page are hidden immediately — public, friends-only and private entries all become inaccessible
- ✓All entries and comments inside your own journal, which become eligible for permanent purging from LiveJournal's servers after 3 years in deleted status
- ✓Comments and entries you left in other journals and communities — but only if you tick those checkboxes on the Account Status page before deleting
- ✓Your account settings, friends and subscription lists, tags, userpics and custom journal style
- ✓Future automatic payments stop; LiveJournal credits remaining Professional time through the last billing cycle, and that time is neither transferable nor refundable
- ✓Your username, once the account is actually purged — LiveJournal states usernames of deleted and purged accounts become available, claimable by renaming an existing account
Stays behind
- ✗Everything, for up to 3 years. "Deleted" is a hidden, reversible state; LiveJournal states there is no way to determine when a given account will actually be purged
- ✗Comments and entries you posted in other people's journals and in communities, if you did not tick the optional checkboxes
- ✗Copies, screenshots, quotes and reposts made by other users, and community entries others archived or mirrored
- ✗Search engine caches and Internet Archive / Wayback Machine snapshots — LiveJournal states that once entries have been publicly indexed it cannot remove them and you must contact the search engines yourself
- ✗Communities you created or maintain, which are separate accounts and survive until separately deleted
- ✗Payment and billing records held by LiveJournal and by the payment processor for anything you bought
- ✗Data held under Russian law by LLC "SIM" in Moscow, including anything already disclosed to authorities
Before you delete
The big gotcha is that "deleted" on LiveJournal means "hidden and reversible," not "erased." LiveJournal states plainly that there is no way to determine when a deleted account will be purged. Second gotcha: the checkboxes for removing comments and entries you left elsewhere are opt-in and only appear at the moment of deletion — miss them and that content stays put under your name. Third: Professional service time is neither transferable nor refundable, and deleting only stops *future* automatic payments while crediting remaining time through the last billing cycle, so cancel before deleting rather than after. Fourth: a community is its own account with its own Account Status page and is untouched by deleting your personal journal; if you are the sole maintainer, transfer maintainership or delete it separately or it is left orphaned. Fifth, a documented inconsistency in LiveJournal's own help: FAQ 16, the deletion FAQ, was last updated 15 July 2026 and states the 3-year window, while the older FAQ 127 on usernames still says "Deleted accounts keep that status for one year" — treat 3 years as current because it is the more recently maintained page, but do not rely on either as a guarantee. Finally, jurisdiction matters more here than on most platforms: the privacy policy names LLC "SIM" of Moscow as operator and defers to Russian law and the Russian-language text. LiveJournal's 2016 move of its servers to Russia and the Rambler/Sberbank ownership chain are widely reported but are not stated on any LiveJournal page, so treat those specifics as external reporting rather than official confirmation.
Download your data from LiveJournal first
Most platforms only honor a data-export request while the account is still active. Do this before you delete.
- 1Log in and go to https://www.livejournal.com/export.bml
- 2Choose the month and year you want to export — LiveJournal documents that the tool handles one month of your journal per download
- 3Choose CSV or XML as the format
- 4Download the file and repeat for every month you posted
- 5Note the limits LiveJournal documents: comments are not included, the output is meant for archiving rather than reading, and exported files cannot be reimported into a LiveJournal account — reposting must be done manually, entry by entry
- 6For comments and a human-readable archive, LiveJournal's own suggestion is to save or print individual entries from your calendar view; third-party backup tools are the other option, but they are not supported by LiveJournal
Want to take a break instead? Deactivate
Deactivation hides your profile without permanently destroying it. Logging back in restores everything.
- 1LiveJournal has no separate "deactivate" option — deletion is the deactivation. Clicking "Delete my account and journal" on the Account Status page hides your journal and profile while leaving the data restorable, and you undelete by logging in and returning to the same Account Status page within 3 years. If you only want to disappear from public view without touching the account, the softer alternatives are enabling "Minimize my journal's inclusion in search engine results" in the Privacy section of your settings at https://www.livejournal.com/settings/ (LiveJournal notes this works by publishing robots.txt instructions, which not every crawler obeys), and using the Edit Journal Privacy feature to switch existing entries in bulk to "Just Me (Private)".
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.
LiveJournal deletion FAQs
Is deleting my LiveJournal actually permanent?+
Not right away. Clicking "Delete my account and journal" only puts the account into a hidden, deleted state. LiveJournal's deletion FAQ states that if you undelete within 3 years, all of your entries, comments and settings will be restored from the same Account Status page. Only after that does the account become eligible for purging, which LiveJournal states is permanent and cannot be reverted. LiveJournal also states there is no way to determine when a deleted account will actually be purged.
How do I get rid of comments I left in other people's journals?+
There are checkboxes for it on the Account Status page, and you must tick them before you click delete — LiveJournal added this option specifically so that deleting your account can also remove comments and entries you posted in other journals and communities. If you delete without ticking them, that content stays readable and still attributed to your username even though your own journal is gone. Your remedy afterwards is to undelete the account and redo the deletion with the boxes ticked.
Can I delete all my old entries but keep the account?+
Not in bulk. LiveJournal's FAQ on this is explicit that you must delete each entry individually, including entries you made in communities. The alternative it recommends is changing entry security to Private instead, which can be done in bulk through the Edit Journal Privacy feature. Be aware this stops future indexing but does not undo past indexing — LiveJournal says publicly-posted entries may remain in search engine results and that you must approach the search engines directly about those.
Can I get my old username back, or take a purged one?+
LiveJournal states that usernames of deleted and purged accounts are available, but only by renaming an existing account — you cannot register a purged username fresh at signup. An account that is deleted but not yet purged still holds its name. Note that abandoned names are not necessarily safe either: LiveJournal says it may delete inactive and empty journals — those with two entries or fewer that have not been accessed by their owner for two years or more — specifically in order to free their usernames.
How do I save my posts before I delete? Can I move them to another blog?+
Use the Export Journal page at https://www.livejournal.com/export.bml. LiveJournal's FAQ documents that it downloads one month of your journal at a time, in CSV or XML, without comments, and describes the result as suited to archiving rather than reading. The same FAQ states exported files cannot be reimported into a LiveJournal account, so reposting has to be done manually entry by entry. For comments and a readable archive, LiveJournal suggests saving or printing individual entries from your calendar view instead.
I'm in the EU — can I make LiveJournal erase my data under GDPR?+
There is no self-service GDPR or data-subject-request form. LiveJournal is operated by LLC "SIM" in Moscow and its policy is written to Russian data law: you may request deletion or withdraw consent, and on withdrawal the company says it will cease processing and destroy the data within a period not exceeding 30 days from receipt, absent another legal basis. The address given is 117105, Moscow, Varshavskoe highway, 9, building 1, premises D, room 5. The only practical online channel is a ticket at https://www.livejournal.com/support/submit, and the policy states the Russian version prevails over the English translation in any conflict. Do not count on an enforceable EU erasure right here — the Account Status delete plus the eventual purge is the realistic path.
I can't remember the password to my 2005 LiveJournal. Can support delete it for me?+
Deletion happens on the login-gated Account Status page and acts on whichever account you are signed in as, so in practice you need to get back into the account. Start with "Forgot password" on the login page, which sends a reset to the email address on file. If that mailbox is also long dead, open a ticket at https://www.livejournal.com/support/submit; recovery is not guaranteed. One narrow bit of relief: LiveJournal says it may delete inactive and empty journals — two entries or fewer, not accessed by the owner for two years or more — to free up their usernames.
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