How to delete your Vimeo account
Vimeo is an ad-free video hosting and collaboration platform founded in 2004, with more than 1.7 million paid subscribers who use it to host portfolios, client review pages, webinars and paid video-on-demand. Your account holds far more than clips: uploaded videos and their original source files, showcases and folders, profile bio and avatar, comments, likes and group memberships, Video Review pages and collaborator notes, plus billing and tax information for anyone who has sold video. Vimeo also logs technical data on everyone who touches its player — IP address, device and browser data, and session activity. In September 2025 Vimeo entered a definitive agreement to be acquired by Italian software group Bending Spoons for $1.38 billion in cash, a deal that takes the company private and off Nasdaq on completion; Vimeo's privacy policy still names Vimeo.com, Inc. as the controller of your data.
Delete your Vimeo account, step by step
- 1Download anything you want to keep BEFORE you cancel or delete — Vimeo states plainly that "bulk downloading is not supported". Open each video's page, select the "Download" button below the video player, pick a file size in the modal window, then select the download icon next to the version you want. Downloading requires a paid plan, so do this while your subscription is still active.
- 2If you signed up with Google, Facebook or Apple, create a Vimeo password first — Vimeo's help article states you "will need to create a Vimeo password" before you can delete the account, because deletion is confirmed with a password. Use the forgot-password/reset flow on the login page with your account email.
- 3Cancel any paid subscription: go to https://vimeo.com/settings/billing, select "Membership plan", select "Billing" on the left side, select "Cancel subscription" in the lower right corner, and confirm. If you subscribed through the Apple App Store or Google Play, the cancel option will not appear on vimeo.com — you must cancel through Apple or Google instead.
- 4Log in to your Vimeo account on a desktop browser.
- 5Select your avatar in the upper right corner to open the main menu, then scroll down and choose "Settings" (or go straight to https://vimeo.com/settings).
- 6Open the "Privacy" tab.
- 7Select "Delete your account" and follow the on-screen prompts, confirming with your password.
- 8Optional: to push for residual personal data to be erased as well, email [email protected] from your account address, or use Vimeo's privacy request form at https://vimeo.com/help/contact?category=cf_account&subcategory=cf_privacy_related_request. Vimeo says it will "endeavor to process requests within one month".
What actually happens when you delete
Gets removed
- ✓Your public profile page and its visibility — Vimeo says deletion makes the account invisible to the public
- ✓All your uploaded videos and collections — Vimeo's help article lists "all your videos, collections, likes, comments, etc."
- ✓Every comment you posted, along with your likes and other on-platform activity
- ✓Videos you had embedded elsewhere — once the videos are gone, any Vimeo player embedded on your own or a client's site stops working
- ✓Your account settings, folders and showcases tied to the profile
Stays behind
- ✗Your email address — Vimeo's privacy policy names it as retained after you close your account
- ✗Your tax information and transactional information, retained "for auditing, tax, and financial purposes"
- ✗Communications with you — support tickets and email exchanges are explicitly named as retained
- ✗Logs of automatically collected information (IP address, device and browser data, session activity), kept "for internal analytics and security purposes"
- ✗Anything Vimeo has a business or legal reason to keep, which it assesses per request
- ✗Search engine caches — Vimeo warns that if a video was previously public, "the video or its thumbnail may continue to be discoverable in a search engine's cache for a time"
- ✗Copies other people already downloaded or re-uploaded elsewhere, and third-party archives such as the Internet Archive, until they re-crawl
Before you delete
Three real gotchas. First, the export trap: downloading requires a paid plan and bulk download is explicitly unsupported, so if you cancel or lapse to Free before exporting, everything over the 1 GB Free cap becomes "restricted" — unplayable, uneditable, undownloadable, embeds and shared links dead — and deleting a restricted video is permanent with no "Recently deleted" recovery. Export first, cancel second, delete third. Second, App Store and Google Play subscriptions cannot be cancelled from Vimeo's billing settings; you must cancel with Apple or Google or you keep being billed after the Vimeo account is gone. Third, deletion is not a full data purge: Vimeo's privacy policy says it may retain logs of automatically collected information, your email address, your tax information, communications with you, and your transactional information after closure, and it keeps data where it has a business or legal reason to. To push further, email [email protected] or use the privacy request form at https://vimeo.com/help/contact?category=cf_account&subcategory=cf_privacy_related_request (postal: Vimeo.com, Inc., Attention: Data Protection Officer, 330 West 34th Street, 10th Floor, New York, NY 10001). Requests are processed free of charge "unless they would impose an unreasonable cost", with a one-month target. Vimeo verifies identity by matching at least two data points you supply against its records, or at least three plus possibly a signed declaration under penalty of perjury for more sensitive requests. EU/EEA residents can route a request through Vimeo's Article 27 representative, the European Data Protection Office (edpo.com/gdpr-data-request); Swiss residents through EDPO Switzerland (edpo.com/swiss-data-request). Vimeo OTT sellers and site members must be removed from those selling sites before OTT deletion will go through. Finally, note the pending change of ownership: Vimeo agreed in September 2025 to be acquired by Bending Spoons for $1.38 billion, taking it private and off Nasdaq.
Download your data from Vimeo first
Most platforms only honor a data-export request while the account is still active. Do this before you delete.
- 1Vimeo provides no one-click account data export. To retrieve your videos, open each video's page, select the "Download" button below the player, choose a file size in the modal window, then select the download icon next to the version you want; Vimeo states "bulk downloading is not supported" and the download feature requires a paid plan. Do this before cancelling or deleting. For the personal data Vimeo holds beyond your videos (account, billing, log and activity data), submit a request by emailing [email protected] with your full name and account email address, or use Vimeo's privacy request form at https://vimeo.com/help/contact?category=cf_account&subcategory=cf_privacy_related_request. Vimeo says it will endeavor to process requests within one month and will do so free of charge "unless they would impose an unreasonable cost on us". Expect to verify your identity by matching at least two data points against Vimeo's records (three, and possibly a signed declaration under penalty of perjury, for more sensitive requests).
Want to take a break instead? Deactivate
Deactivation hides your profile without permanently destroying it. Logging back in restores everything.
- 1Vimeo has no true deactivation, but Private Mode is the closest equivalent. Go to the Privacy tab of account settings at https://vimeo.com/settings/account/privacy, select "Enable Private Mode", review the listed changes, and re-enter your account password to confirm. This hides your profile page and videos from vimeo.com, sets every video to "Embed only", prevents use of groups and channels, and removes your previous messages, comments and likes — while your videos remain embeddable on your own site. Vimeo states the action cannot be reversed. Private Mode requires a Pro, Business, Premium, Standard, Advanced or Enterprise membership; Free, Basic, Plus and Starter members must upgrade.
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.
Vimeo deletion FAQs
Can I recover my Vimeo account or videos after deleting?+
No. The 30-day "Recently deleted" tab only applies to individual videos you delete while your account still exists — it is not a grace period for account deletion. Vimeo's wording is blunt: "Once an account is deleted, we cannot guarantee that any information is retained, which means we will not be able to restore account details, assets, or activity." There is no reactivation window and no undo. Download everything first.
Why is Vimeo asking me to create a password when I signed up with Google?+
Deletion is confirmed with a password, and a Google, Facebook or Apple social login never gave you one. Vimeo's help article states that if you signed up via a third party "you will need to create a Vimeo password" before you can delete. Use the forgot-password/reset flow on the login page with your account email, set a real Vimeo password, then run the deletion.
Does deleting my Vimeo account cancel my subscription and refund me?+
Cancel it separately at https://vimeo.com/settings/billing first and confirm you see the cancellation. Vimeo states that "refunds are not automatic upon cancellation" — in some cases you may be eligible, but you have to request one and qualify under its refund policy. Critically, if you bought the plan through the Apple App Store or Google Play, the cancel option does not appear in Vimeo's billing settings at all: you must cancel with Apple or Google or the charges continue.
How do I download all my Vimeo videos before deleting? There's no export button.+
There isn't one. Vimeo states "bulk downloading is not supported". You open each video page, select the "Download" button below the player, choose a file size in the modal, then select the download icon next to the version you want. The feature requires a paid plan, so export everything while your subscription is still live. If you have hundreds of videos, budget real time — there is no zip-file export like Google Takeout.
I downgraded to Free and now I can't download my own videos — what happened?+
The Free plan caps you at 1 GB. If your library is larger, videos become "restricted", in reverse upload order — newest uploads first. Vimeo states that while restricted, "the videos cannot be played, edited, or downloaded. Their clip pages and embeds will stop working, and any links you have shared will no longer play." They are not deleted and reappear if your library fits back under the cap, but you cannot get copies out of them — and a restricted video you delete does not move to "Recently deleted" and cannot be recovered. This is why you export before you cancel, not after.
I only want my Vimeo profile off the public site — do I have to delete everything?+
No. Private Mode hides your profile page and videos from vimeo.com, locks every video to "Embed only", blocks groups and channels, and removes your previous messages, comments and likes, while your videos stay embeddable on your own site. Enable it on the Privacy tab at https://vimeo.com/settings/account/privacy by selecting "Enable Private Mode", reviewing the listed changes and re-entering your password. Two catches: Vimeo says the action cannot be reversed, and it requires a Pro, Business, Premium, Standard, Advanced or Enterprise membership — Free, Basic, Plus and Starter members must upgrade.
My account is a Vimeo OTT / VHX account — these steps don't work. What do I do?+
Vimeo OTT has its own deletion flow. Go to your user settings at https://www.vhx.tv/settings, scroll to the bottom of the page, select "Permanently delete your account", and confirm. Vimeo notes that if you are an admin or member of a selling Vimeo OTT site, you must be removed from those sites before you can delete the account. Deleting an OTT account does not touch a regular vimeo.com account, and vice versa.
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