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How to private my account on facebook


How to Make Your Profile Private On Facebook

Facebook is, by default, set to make all your information public. But what if you want to keep your profile private and have more control over what other Facebook users, who aren’t your friends, can see on your profile? Is it possible to change your account’s default settings?

Unfortunately, there’s no magic switch to make your profile completely private by default. However, if you know the correct settings to tweak, you can make your profile effectively 100% confidential.

If you’ve been wondering how to make your Facebook profile private, this article walks you through the steps.

How to Make Your Facebook Profile Private

If you want to make your Facebook profile private via a browser, here’s what you should do:

  1. Open any browser on your computer and head to Facebook. com.
  2. Log in to your account.
  3. Click on the upside-down triangle (Account Settings) in the top-right section.
  4. Choose Settings.
  5. Select Privacy in the “Settings” menu on the left. Doing so opens the Privacy Settings and Tools pane on the right.
  6. You can now change your privacy settings for different features. Adjust the settings to suit your privacy needs. To do this, tap on the blue Edit button (or anywhere in the row) to change your privacy settings.

How to Make Your Profile Private On Facebook Mobile

Nowadays, many people only use Facebook on their phones. Fortunately, the process for those who want to make their profile private is reasonably straightforward. It is primarily the same for both iPhone and Android devices. There are two ways to change your privacy settings on the Facebook mobile app.

If you want to do a quick checkup, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Settings on Facebook and tap on Privacy Checkup.
  2. Tap on the box in the upper left corner that says, Who can see what you share.
  3. Tap Continue.
  4. Tap on the dropdown options to the right and choose the privacy setting that best fits your needs. Then, tap Next at the bottom.
  5. Now, tap the dropdown options to the right to select who can see the content you post.

    Note: You can also select Limit to change the privacy settings on previous posts.
  6. Lastly, you can block other users.

Going through the Privacy Checkup settings makes it easy to limit what others can see. But, if you want to have more options, you can follow these steps to make more details private:

  1. Launch the Facebook app on your phone.
  2. Tap on the Hamburger icon. Depending on the phone, it’ll be on the top right side of the screen or the bottom right.
  3. Scroll down and choose Settings and Privacy.
  4. Tap on the Settings tab.
  5. Under the Audience and visibility section, click on the various options updating each one.
  6. For example, if you click on Edit to the right of your contact information, you can choose what other people see.
  7. If you want to make your posts private, tap on Posts.
  8. Tap through the remaining options to set your preferences.

These steps allow you to make things other than your posts and contact information private. For example, the Followers and public content option lets you limit who can comment on your public posts.

How to Make Your Future Facebook Content Private from Strangers

What if you want to hide your Facebook profile content from those who aren’t your friends? How can you do this? Just follow the steps below.

  1. Go to facebook.com from any browser, then log in to your account.
  2. Tap or click on the upside-down triangle (account settings) on the upper right part of the screen.
  3. Tap or click on Settings and Privacy.
  4. Choose Settings.
  5. Click on Privacy from the menu on the left.
  6. In the right pane, scroll down to Your Activity, then tap/click on the Edit button (or anywhere in the row) for Who can see your future posts?
  7. Click or tap on Public and change it to Friends.

You can also change this setting on each of your posts by tapping the three dots in the upper right-hand corner (of that post). Here, you can select who can see your status (public, friends only, private, custom, etc.).

In closing, anonymity doesn’t happen with one click, but making your Facebook profile private is relatively simple. All the options appear in the “Security and Privacy” section within “Settings. ” Just follow the steps provided in this article, and you’ll have no issues.

Facebook Privacy FAQs

Here are the answers to more of your questions about Facebook privacy.

If I set my profile to Private, can people still see my profile picture?

Yes, anyone can see your profile picture, even if they don’t have a Facebook account (search engine results, profile URL, etc.). When you set your profile to private, other users can still see your profile picture and a few details about your account, but they can only see posts you made “Public.”

How do I see what my profile looks like to people who aren’t my friends?

One of the convenient features of Facebook is the ability to see what your profile looks like to others. This feature is precious when checking what information you have set to “Public,” such as posts, ‘Friends’ lists, etc. You can follow these steps to view your profile as it appears to the public:

1. Open Facebook and tap on the arrow in the upper right-hand corner.

2. Tap on the Hamburger icon(three horizontal lines) in the upper right (Android) or in the lower right (iPhone).

3. Go to your profile.

4. On your profile page, tap on the three horizontal dots to the right of Edit Profile.

5. Click or tap on View As.

Can I make my profile picture private?

Unfortunately, you cannot make your profile picture private. If you upload a photo to use as a profile picture, anyone can see it. However, you can reset your profile image to Facebook’s default photo (the silhouette of a person on a blank background). Navigate to your “Profile Picture photo album, select your current profile picture, and click on the three-dot icon to delete the image.

You can also set your profile image to something commonplace, like a favorite superhero or symbol. Be careful with copyright infringement laws, though.

How to Make Facebook Profile As Private As Possible

  • You can use Facebook's Privacy menu to limit who can see your posts, profile, and more.
  • Setting every option to "Only Me" will make your Facebook profile as private as possible.
  • You can also set up reminders to update your privacy settings using the Privacy Checkup tool.

Facebook is still the biggest social media platform in the world. But while it's convenient for connecting up with friends or colleagues, it also holds more of your personal data than you realize. If you don't have the right privacy settings, a lot of that personal data might be on public display.

While you can't control the advertisers and other outside companies that Facebook chooses to sell your information to, there are ways to ensure that other Facebook users can't see your information unless you want them too.

Here's how to make yourself private on Facebook.

Quick tip: If you don't want anyone to see your profile ever again, consider deactivating or deleting your Facebook account instead. It's a more extreme measure, but still the best way to pull your data off the site.

How to make your Facebook private

Facebook generally has four levels of privacy that you can set your account and posts to.

  • Public means that anyone with a link can see it, even if they don't have a Facebook account.
  • Friends means that only people on your friends list can see it. You can even exclude certain friends from seeing a post, too.
  • Friends of friends means that anyone who you share a mutual friend with can see it.
  • Only me means that it's totally private, and you're the only one who can see it.

If you want to make your Facebook as private as possible, you'll want to choose Only me whenever you can.

While some of Facebook's privacy tools are available in the mobile app, you'll need to open the Facebook website on a computer to find all of them.

To get to Facebook's Privacy menu:

1. Open the Facebook website and log into your account.

2. Click your profile picture in the top-right corner, and then select Settings & privacy in the menu that appears. 

Head to your Privacy menu. Stefan Ionescu/Insider

3. In the submenu, click Settings.

Go to your Facebook profile’s Settings page. Stefan Ionescu/Insider

4. On the Settings page that opens, click Privacy in the left sidebar.

This will open the Privacy Settings and Tools page with more options: 

Make your posts private

First, head to Your Activity section to change who's allowed to see your posts, posts you've been tagged in, and pages that you follow.

  • Click Who can see your future posts? to change the privacy settings for everything you post from now on.
  • Click Who can see the people, Pages and lists you follow? to change who's allowed to see what you're following.
  • Clicking either Review all your posts and things you're tagged in or Limit the audience for posts you've shared with friends of friends or Public? will take you to a new page where you can edit the privacy settings on changes you've already uploaded.
You’ll find all these options on the Privacy page. Stefan Ionescu/Insider

Hide your profile so people can't find you

If you're concerned about people finding your profile and posts, the How People Find and Contact You tools can help keep you hidden.

  • Click Who can send you friend requests to limit the amount of people allowed to friend you. Just note that you can't turn friend requests off completely — the best you can do is limit them to mutual friends.
  • The Who can see your friends list? option can hide your friends list, so people can't see who's in your network.
  • Both Who can look you up using the email address you provided? and Who can look you up using the phone number you provided? options can make it so even if someone already has your contact information, they won't be able to find you on Facebook.
  • Clicking Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile? lets you hide your profile from Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other search engines. This is useful if you're worried about people finding you by googling your name — just note that it can take a few days to process.

Stop people from messaging you

Using the How You Get Message Requests section, you can limit who's allowed to message you. You can also choose to receive certain messages but filter them into their own folder, away from your inbox.

  • Under Potential Connections, choose where messages from people who have your phone number and/or mutual friends go. You can choose Chats (your regular inbox), Message requests (a separate folder), or Don't receive requests (deletes them).
  • Under Other people, make the same choice for people you're not connected to and Instagram users. Here, you can't choose to receive their messages in your regular inbox — you have to choose either Message requests or Don't receive requests.

How to make specific Facebook posts private

The options we talked about above control your entire Facebook account. But whenever you post something, you can give it its own privacy settings. This means you can keep your profile private but make a single post public, and vice versa.

1. When you're creating a Facebook post, click the dropdown button under your name.

Tap this button to choose how private you want the post to be. Stefan Ionescu/Insider

2. In the menu that opens, select how private or public you want the post to be.

Once you post, only the audience that you choose will be able to see it.

How to set up privacy check reminders on Facebook

It's easy to forget to update the Facebook settings mentioned above as your privacy needs change. Luckily, through Privacy Checkup, you can set reminders that periodically alert you to review them.

1. Open the Facebook website and log into your account.

2. Click your profile picture in the top-right corner of the screen, and then select Settings & Privacy in the menu that appears.

3. In the submenu, click Privacy Checkup.

Click “Privacy Checkup.” Stefan Ionescu/Insider

4. On the next screen, click the three horizontal dots and select Set up reminders.

5. In the pop-up, select when you want Facebook to remind you to do a privacy check, and then click Save.

Jennifer Still contributed to a previous version of this article.

William Antonelli

Tech Reporter for Insider Reviews

William Antonelli (he/she/they) is a writer, editor, and organizer based in New York City. As a founding member of the Reference team, he helped grow Tech Reference (now part of Insider Reviews) from humble beginnings into a juggernaut that attracts over 20 million visits a month. Outside of Insider, his writing has appeared in publications like Polygon, The Outline, Kotaku, and more. He's also a go-to source for tech analysis on channels like Newsy, Cheddar, and NewsNation. You can find him on Twitter @DubsRewatcher, or reach him by email at [email protected].

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How do I close my Facebook profile?

Help Center

We are updating the mobile version of Facebook.com. More

Open profile

This feature is currently only available in some countries and on certain devices.

If you see the icon on a person's profile, it means they have closed their profile and restricted access to their content to people who are not on their Facebook friends list.

When a person closes their profile, only their friends see the following content:

Profile photos and publications.

Full size profile and cover photos.

Stories.

New publications and photos.

Also:

Any public posts that this person has previously shared will only be visible to their friends.

The profile and label verification function will be enabled.

Information from the "Information" section of his profile will only be partially visible.

Other ways to manage privacy

If you are unable to close your profile, manage your privacy using your privacy settings:

Use the privacy check.

Select the audience for the publication.

Edit basic profile information and choose who will see it.

Change history privacy settings.

Enable the profile check feature.

Apply the mark check function.

Enable profile photo protection. nine0003

Manage settings for adding friends and subscriptions.

Choose who can find your profile using your email address and mobile phone number.

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"Profile transparency" section in professional mode

Blocking profiles on Facebook

How to delete a profile in Facebook Dating? nine0003

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permanently? Instructions with screenshots

The difference between deletion and deactivation

Deactivation acts as a temporary account freeze. For example, you decided to go to the mountains and indulge in a digital detox without Facebook and constant notifications, but you know for sure that in a couple of months you will return and you will need an account with all contacts and messages. By the way, about messages - when you delete your Facebook profile, you will also delete the link to Messenger, which will lead to the loss of all dialogs and data in correspondence. Therefore, if an account on FB is no longer needed, but private messages are a different matter, then you can use the account deactivation option instead of deleting it. nine0003

Read related: How to delete old posts from Facebook Timeline

How to deactivate a Facebook account

From the web version menu) and select "Settings", or simply follow this link.

Click "Edit" on the "Account Management" block

And click "Deactivate Account" at the very bottom of this settings block. nine0003

To prevent your account from being deactivated by a colleague who doesn't really like you, but left his work computer on, Facebook will ask you to enter the current account password, and only after that the account will be deactivated. Messenger will keep its performance and history of correspondence, but when you again want to share your thoughts, mood or tell Mark what's new, you can always activate your account again, completely restoring all the data. nine0003

From the mobile app

Tap the hamburger menu on the app's bottom bar, then Settings & Privacy > Settings.

Next, you need the "Account Management" menu item. By the way, on the current screen, you can use the application to download the archive of the data you downloaded.

And in "Account Management" - the section "Deactivation and deletion".

After that, it remains only to finally decide on the decision about deactivation or removal by selecting the appropriate item. nine0003

How to delete an entire Facebook account

If you have definitely decided that you will no longer need it, as well as Messenger (leave - so leave), then instead of deactivating your account, which still leaves the possibility of rolling everything back, it would be preferable for you to delete the entire account, without the possibility of recovery.

Read related: How to permanently delete accounts from Twitter, Instagram and TikTok

From the web version

In the same way as during deactivation, go to the general settings of Facebook, but from the "General" tab go to "Your information on Facebook". Here you can also request an archive of all information for downloading to your computer, if you definitely don’t feel sorry for the account, but all those hundreds of photos, records, notes and comments are a pity. The social network will create an archive of all this data for you, which can be downloaded before deleting your account.

On the deletion page, you will once again be asked to deactivate your account instead of deleting it, just in case, if you need Messenger, and also to download the archive with the information you downloaded.

You can then unzip the data file and make sure that everything is actually saved - from your saved objects and links and account information to all photos (taking into account the nesting hierarchy of your albums) and Likes and list friends at the time of account deletion. nine0003

If you have thought it all over and decided to permanently delete your account, all that remains is to press the appropriate button and then enter the account password for confirmation.

If you suddenly change your mind about deleting after deleting (yes, this also happens), then you will have 30 days to restore your account, you just need to log into it and click "Cancel deletion" on the page that appears after logging in .

Well, if within a month after the deletion you have not decided to restore your account, then you will not be able to do it after. nine0003

From the phone

All steps are similar to account deactivation, except for the final one - you just need to select "Account deletion" instead of "Account deactivation".

This is about deleting a profile, that is, a personal page. In addition, sometimes it becomes necessary to delete the company page.

How to delete a business page on Facebook

From the web version

First of all, you need to go to the page that you administer and click on the "Settings" menu. nine0003

To delete a page, you need the lowest item in the general settings block.

When you click "Delete Page", Facebook will warn you that you have 2 weeks to restore it if you change your mind.

From the app

Here's how to do it from your phone using the standard Facebook app.

By clicking on the hamburger menu at the very top of the screen, a list of pages that you administer will appear. Select the one you want, and then tap on the menu hidden behind the three dots. nine0003

Then you need to follow this path through the screens:

"Edit page" - "Settings" - "General" - "Delete page". And confirm your choice.

The Facebook interface changes quite often (although not so noticeably), so if you decide to use our instructions, but something doesn’t match your screenshots or the links above, use the permalink to the general Facebook help on deleting and deactivating your account.

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