Meta’s Threads was a huge success out of the gate a few months ago when Mark Zuckerberg’s social media conglomerate used Instagram’s huge reach to turn its first Twitter/X rival into a viral sensation. It didn’t help X that Elon Musk was making a mess of things, and Meta took action right at one of X’s low points.
In typical Meta fashion, Instagram made activating Threads accounts very easy. This helped boost the initial numbers well beyond what a brand-new app would typically have been able to do. Annoyingly, Meta also made it impossible to leave Threads once you activated an account. Deleting a Threads account would also mean deleting your entire Instagram account, an option no longtime Instagram user would seriously consider.
Meta offered users a way to deactivate their Threads profiles without really deleting them. At the time, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said the company would work on a way to completely delete Threads without also deleting Instagram. That was in July. Fast-forward to mid-November, and Mosseri has finally announced the feature.
Mosseri took to Threads to announce support for deleting a Threads profile from your Instagram account:
We’re rolling out a way for you to delete your Threads profile separately from your Instagram account. To delete your Threads profile, visit Settings → Account → Delete or Deactivate Profile, then select delete.
Deleting Threads is incredibly simple, as seen above. But Instagram will continue to present both options to you. You can deactivate the profile if you think you’ll use it later. Or you can delete it completely.
The latter option is your best choice if you only tested Threads to see what it can do and don’t plan on using it. You can reactivate your Threads profile or open a new one whenever you like.
Mosseri also announced a second feature that Instagram will release based on user feedback:
We recently introduced a feature that makes it easy for people to see Threads posts directly on Facebook and Instagram, to help expand your audience and grow your reach. We heard feedback that you want more control over the experience, so we’re rolling out a way to opt out of being featured outside Threads in Settings → Privacy.
Threads appearing directly on Facebook and Instagram is exactly the kind of feature Meta would roll out. It’s one way to increase the visibility of Threads. The X rival was a hit in the first weeks after launching this summer. But Threads didn’t kill Musk’s social platform, nor is it as hot as it was.
Thankfully, Meta is making it possible to stop sharing your threads outside the app.
