How to Remove Yourself from AnyWho (2026 Guide)

Quick answer: AnyWho does not run its own removal form. Its people search results are supplied by Spokeo, so go to https://www.spokeo.com/optout, paste in the URL of the matching Spokeo profile, then click the confirmation link Spokeo emails you. Free, about 10 minutes. The AnyWho listing usually clears within 24 to 72 hours after Spokeo processes the request.

What is AnyWho?

AnyWho has been around longer than most of the web. It began inside AT&T’s directory business in the late 1990s and has changed hands more than once since, offering a free white pages lookup, reverse phone search, and yellow pages. Today the people search results behind it come from Spokeo’s database, which is the detail that decides how you get out. A directory page tying a phone number to a name and a town is exactly the kind of lead that grandparent-scam and fake-Medicare crews harvest before they start dialing.

Before you start

Everything here is free, and you should refuse any site or service that wants money for the deletion itself. You will need an inbox that can receive one confirmation link, plus the web address of the matching Spokeo profile, which you will pick up along the way.

One warning about stale advice: guides written before 2026 mostly send AnyWho removals through PeopleConnect and Intelius. That route no longer matches how the site works, so ignore it. We confirmed this on the live site in July 2026: the “Do Not Sell My Info” link in anywho.com’s footer goes straight to Spokeo’s opt-out page at https://www.spokeo.com/optout.

Doing this for a parent? Spokeo never asks for proof that you are the person in the listing, and its confirmation email goes to whichever inbox you provide, so a son or daughter can run the whole removal without the parent touching a keyboard. The payoff lands on their end: fewer strangers with their number, fewer scam calls getting through.

How to opt out of AnyWho

1. Skip AnyWho itself and search the name at https://www.spokeo.com. Open the profile whose age, city, and relatives line up with the person you are removing.
2. Copy the full profile URL from the browser’s address bar.
3. In a new tab, open https://www.spokeo.com/optout and scroll to the section for opting a listing out of Spokeo.
4. Paste the URL, add your email address, complete the CAPTCHA, and click “Opt Out”.
5. Watch the inbox for Spokeo’s confirmation message and click the link inside. It stops working after 72 hours, and the request does not count until it is clicked.
6. A few days later, run the same name search on anywho.com to confirm the listing is gone from there too.

How long it takes

Spokeo generally processes a confirmed request within one to three days. Because AnyWho draws from Spokeo’s database, the AnyWho copy tends to drop in the same window, though the sync can trail by a few extra days. Search engines may keep showing a cached snippet for up to a week after the page itself is gone.

Check back in a few months

There is something absurd about filing paperwork with one company to get off a different company’s website, but that is the errand, and it repeats across a couple dozen sites before a family is done. It also does not stay done: Spokeo keeps ingesting fresh public records, each new profile gets a new URL, each needs its own opt out, and each flows back to AnyWho. Search the name on both sites every 90 days. KinKeeper’s Data Removal does this automatically across dozens of broker sites and re-checks every 90 days.