GitHub github.com How to delete your GitHub account
Back up your repositories, then click your profile picture > Settings > Account, scroll to Delete account and click Delete your account. Type your username or email and the phrase GitHub asks for. GitHub can't restore the account afterwards.
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Reviewed by Anthon Wansland
Head of Product & Co-Founder
Serus is a privacy company with paid tools to find and remove your personal data. This guide shows the free way to do it yourself.
Step by step
- 1
Back up what you want to keep
GitHub tells you to copy all repositories, private forks, wikis, issues and pull requests owned by your account before you delete it. Its docs have a "Backing up a repository" article for this.
- 2
Open your settings
Sign in to GitHub.com. In the upper-right corner of any page, click your profile picture, then click Settings.
- 3
Go to Account
In the left sidebar, click Account.
- 4
Click Delete your account
At the bottom of the Account settings page, under "Delete account", click Delete your account.
- 5
Confirm in the dialog
In the "Make sure you want to do this" dialog, confirm you understand what happens when the account is deleted. In the first field, type your username or email. In the second field, type the phrase GitHub shows in the prompt.
Watch out for
- Once your personal account is deleted, GitHub can't restore your content. Treat it as final and download what you need first.
- If your account is flagged, suspended or restricted, the Delete your account option may be unavailable or send you to GitHub Support.
- GitHub Support doesn't delete the account for you. Once they restore access, you still have to run the steps above yourself.
- Deleting the account only covers GitHub. Copies of your repositories that other people cloned or forked aren't something you control from this page.
Sources checked: docs.github.com, github.com
Last verified against the official page:
What stays out there
Deleting your GitHub account stops new data collection there. It doesn't reach copies held elsewhere. If you used your real name or a work email on commits and your profile, people-search sites and data brokers may already list that name, employer and location, and old search results can keep pointing at cached pages.
Once the account is gone, search for your name and username to see what else shows up. Serus finds where your details are listed and removes them, and keeps watching for new listings.
Frequently asked
Can GitHub Support delete my account for me?
No. GitHub's docs say Support doesn't delete a personal account on your behalf. If your account is restricted, Support can restore access to the normal flow, and then you complete the deletion yourself.
Can I get my account back after deleting it?
GitHub says it can't restore your content once the personal account is deleted. That's why the docs ask you to back up repositories, forks, wikis, issues and pull requests first.
Where is the Delete your account button?
Profile picture > Settings > Account, then scroll to the bottom of the page. It sits under the "Delete account" heading.
What if the Delete your account option is greyed out?
GitHub says that can happen when an account is flagged, suspended or restricted. Contact GitHub Support to get access to the standard self-service flow.
Sources
Related guide How to delete yourself and your information from the internet 
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