Every account you’ve forgotten is one more place your data can leak from. A yearly clean-up shrinks the target.
Shopping sites from years ago, forgotten forums, old fitness apps: each one may still hold your email address, password, address or payment details. Here’s a methodical way to shrink that list.
Step 1: Find the forgotten accounts
- Search your email for words like “welcome,” “verify your email,” “confirm your account” and “receipt.”
- Check your password manager or browser’s saved passwords.
- Look at “Sign in with” connections in your main email and social accounts, which list apps you’ve logged into with them.
- Check app store purchase histories for apps that created accounts.
Step 2: Decide keep, update or delete
For each account:
- Keep: make sure it has a unique password and two-factor authentication.
- Update: remove saved cards and old addresses you don’t need stored.
- Delete: close accounts you no longer use.
Worth doing
Before deleting, download anything you want to keep, such as photos or order history, and cancel any subscription attached to the account. Our guide to canceling online subscriptions explains how.
Step 3: Delete properly
Look in account settings for “delete account” or “close account,” often under privacy or data. If you can’t find it, the company’s privacy policy usually explains how to request deletion. Depending on where you live, state privacy laws may give you a legal right to have your data deleted.
Step 4: Check for breaches
Breach notification services and many password managers can tell you whether an email address appeared in known data breaches. If one did, change the password for that account and anywhere you reused it.
Step 5: Tackle data brokers
Data brokers collect and sell personal information from many sources. If you live in California, the state’s Delete Request and Opt-out Platform, known as DROP, lets you send one deletion request to all registered data brokers. Residents have been able to file since January 1, 2026, and registered brokers have had to start processing requests since August 1, 2026.
Verdict
An hour a year spent closing old accounts does more for your privacy than most apps you can buy.
This clean-up is also the first step in planning for your digital accounts after death. And while you’re tidying, review your camera and smart home accounts using the smart home privacy checkup.
The essentials
- Search your email and password manager to find accounts you’ve forgotten.
- Delete accounts properly instead of abandoning them, and remove saved payment details first.
- Change passwords anywhere you’ve reused one that appeared in a breach.
- California residents can ask hundreds of registered data brokers to delete their data in one request.
Reader questions
Is deactivating the same as deleting?
No. Deactivation usually hides an account but keeps the data. Look for an option to delete the account permanently, and read what the company keeps afterward.
What if I can’t log in to an old account?
Use the password reset if you still have the email address. If not, contact the company’s support or privacy team and ask them to delete it.
Do other states have data broker deletion tools?
Some states have data broker registries or privacy laws that let you ask businesses to delete your data. Check your state attorney general’s website for what applies to you.
We describe how services generally work; features, settings and terms change often, and they differ between companies. This is general information, not legal advice. Check the provider’s current policies and official sources such as FTC.gov.