I know similar questions get asked a lot, but I still couldn’t find a clear answer about the difference between an account that’s deleted and one that’s deactivated.

So, the account of the person I’m trying to figure this out about is not searchable for me if I’m signed out. But if I click on their profile from our chat, I can see their username and bio, while their posts, followers, and following all show 0. Their profile picture shows a human head. In the chat, though, it shows the username as “Instagram User.” I can’t write to them because it says “Disabled accounts can’t be contacted.” It still shows that I’m following them, and I can even remove them as a follower. Their username is still unavailable if I try to make an account with it, but that could just be because Instagram keeps accounts for about a month in case you want to restore them, even if you delete them.

So I made a new account to test things out. First I deleted it. When I checked the profile, the bio wasn’t visible. The profile picture was completely black. I could still text that profile on the app (although on PC it said I couldn’t).

Then I recovered it and deactivated it. The picture was still just a black color, but the bio was visible again. And I could still text it.

What’s interesting is that in both cases, whatever I wrote while the account was deleted or deactivated still went through and I could read it on that new account. But for some reason, I can’t text that person at all anymore.

How to know if account is deleted or deactivated?