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The Comprehensive Guide to Facebook Privacy Settings
UPDATE 4/28/15: We have a completely new and updated guide to Facebook Privacy Settings. Click HERE to get our latest advice.
The first thing you have to realize about Facebook: Nothing you put there is truly private. Yes, you can control how users see or don’t see your profile. But every time you like a product or even look at a page, the company itself is taking note. This doesn’t mean that some day Facebook will malevolently release your every click to the world. But it does mean that Facebook is not your private diary, and what you do on the website gets collected and catalogued. That's worth keeping in mind whenever you use the service.
That said, Facebook is a great way to stay in touch and share small and big moments with family, friends and assorted other connections. The key is making sure you’re presenting the most appropriate profile possible to each friend. So let’s go over the various settings you can change to ensure pictures of your wacky jaunt to Vegas don’t end up at the top of your boss's news feed. Since Facebook tends to opt you in automatically to sharing information as new features are released, it's a good idea to check your privacy settings every few months to maintain the level of transparency you want.
The following information was updated on March 12, 2014.
Check your current basic privacy settings
When you log in to Facebook, in the top right corner are two different ways to access your privacy settings. Clicking the lock icon opens a drop-down menu that shows Privacy Shortcuts. From here, you can make a few key changes to your settings.
Who can see my stuff?
In this section, you get three settings to control how your posts are seen on the site and by whom.
Who can see my future posts?
Your options here are Public, Friends, Only Me and Custom. What you set this to becomes the default sharing setting for all your future posts. It does not affect anything you've previously posted.
We recommend you set this to Friends. If in the future you want to post something that you don't want all your friends to see, you can change this setting right in the post box. No need to come back to this default setting for one post.
You can also group your Facebook Friends in lists and restrict your posts to those lists. Use the Custom option for that.
Only set posts to Public that you are very sure you want out on the Internet forever. Public posts will be captured by Google and other web indexing services and made available to the world for all to see.
Where do I review who can see or find things I've posted or been tagged in?
This will take you to the Activity Log page. Here you can look at every post you've written, every photo you've uploaded, every friend's post you've liked and more. Basically, everything you've done on Facebook or been tagged as doing by others will show up here.
As you go down the list, you can un-like posts you don't want to be associated with, take yourself off tagged photos and even see posts you've hidden from your personal timeline.
You can also change who can see your posts and photos (i.e. custom setting) on an individual basis. And for your friend's posts you've liked and commented on, you can see the privacy settings on those. Didn't know that post you commented on was set to Public? You do now.
What do other people see on my timeline?
This will take you to a page where you can view your timeline the way others see it, even the public. You won't see much difference in your timeline view if you choose to see what it shows to different friends. This is mostly if you have set certain posts to be restricted (or thought you had).
One thing that is of interest is what is public — for example, the header picture you set to be at the top of your timeline. That's right: If it's a picture of your kids, that is public.
Who can contact me?
People who are not your Facebook friends can still send you messages. This is where you can change that.
Whose messages do I want filtered into my Inbox?
It comes as a surprise to many people that they have a Facebook inbox. It's hidden down in a few menus. First, click on Messages on the left column of your Facebook home page under your name and profile picture. On the Messages page that then appears, click on the downward arrow next to the word More and choose Unread. You will now see the messages you never knew you had.
You have two choices for filtering what messages get to you: Basic (loosely defined as "people you may know") and Strict. What this boils down to is do you want messages from people who are friends of friends or not at all? Basic is more lenient with allowing emails; Strict is not.
Who can send me friend requests?
The default here is Everyone, because Facebook wants your network of social interactions to grow. But if you want to limit requests, you can always change it to only allow Friends of friends to send you requests.
How do I stop someone from bothering me?
This one is simple. Just enter in the name of the person or their email. Facebook will unfriend them for you, stop them from starting a new conversation with you and prevent them from seeing any of your posts.
Facebook doesn't like you to unfriend other users, and it provides a few alternate courses of action including messaging the friend to let them know they are bothering you as well as instructions on how to hide someone's updates from your news feed without unfriending them.
If you later change your mind, click on the View All Blocked Users to see who you have blocked, and unblock them. You will have to wait 48 hours to reblock them again.
Advanced settings
Now that we've covered the basics of privacy settings, we can dive into a few more options that will make your Facebook experience more pleasant.
Customize all your timeline settings.
Now that you've mastered the basics, go down to the next section, Timeline and Tagging. From there, you can control exactly who sees what on your timeline, who can post to your timeline, and who can tag you in photos and posts. To check how people see your timeline, you can type any user’s name into View As. It’s a quick way to double-check that your boss doesn’t see your vacation pictures.
To customize your timeline settings, click on the button in the far right corner to reveal a drop-down menu and select Privacy Settings.
Who can post on your timeline?
It's set by default to Friends, and the only other option is to allow only yourself to post on your timeline. This gives you the most control over what appears on your timeline.
Review posts friends tag you in before they appear on your Timeline.
If you are concerned about getting tagged in a photo that you don't want all your friends on Facebook to see, this is the setting for you. Once enabled, you'll have to manually approve any photo or posts you are tagged in before they appear on your timeline. Note that this only affects timeline; those updates will still appear in searches, the news feed and other places unless you un-tag yourself.
Review what other people see on your timeline.
As we mentioned above, it's a perfect way to check that your mother or boss won't see what you don't want them to.
Who can see posts you've been tagged in on your timeline? & Who can see what others post on your timeline?
These areas give you a great deal of flexibility, with options ranging from Everyone to Friends of Friends to custom lists. Using these two in conjunction with manually approving what photos and updates you've been tagged in goes a long way to keep prying eyes away from more sensitive Facebook updates.
Review tags people add to your own posts before the tags appear on Facebook.
This is an important option if you are concerned about a photo popping up on your timeline. This applies only to photo tagging by your Facebook friends. You'll always be notified if someone who's not your friend tags you in a photo.
When you're tagged in a post, who do you want to add to the audience if they weren't already in it?
This one sounds more complicated than it is. Often a Facebook friend of yours will make a post and tag you in it. The option here allows all of your Facebook friends to see an update or photo you've been tagged in by someone they aren't friends with themselves (the Friends of Friends function).
You can choose to remain tagged but have none of your other Facebook friends see that update, limit who sees that update to certain groups of friends, or you can outright block certain Facebook friends altogether by using the Custom option.
Who sees tag suggestions when photos that look like you are updated?
Facebook uses face-matching technology to suggest who you should tag in photos. It will only suggest people that are on the user's friends list. If you don't want to show up as an option when your friends are tagging photos, set this to No One.
Blocking
If you want to take steps to keep people away from your profile, this is the section for you.
Restricted list
If you don’t want to un-friend somebody but you don’t want them to see all of your information, you can add them to the Restricted List. This means they can only see your public information, but they have no way of knowing you’ve limited their view (unless they happen to see someone who isn’t restricted browsing your profile — but that’s probably not going to happen).
Block users
You can also just straight up block somebody. This means this person cannot be your friend. This is an excellent setting if you have stalkers or other people consistently bothering you. Note that this does not stop them from interacting with you in apps, games or groups you're both a part of.
Block app invites
In addition to blocking and restricting people from your profile, you can also block app invitations on a user-by-user basis. So if your Aunt Jackie keeps bombarding you with FarmVille apps, you know what to do.
Block event invites
Tired of your nephew inviting you to his New York City raves every weekend? Typing the name of the Facebook user into this section will stop you from seeing any future event invites from that person.
Block apps
Some apps and Facebook games are great fun at first, but after a while, you want to drop them. You can remove the app or game (see the Apps you use section, below) or block the app, which means it can no longer contact you or get non-public information about you through Facebook. If you are getting emails from the app, you will have to use the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email.
Customize your app privacy
After you finish adjusting the blocking section, click over to the App Settings section. It’s not quite as obvious as changing your timeline settings, but apps often gain a lot of access to your information, and they can do things you might not want them to: collect data about your location, post on your timeline and more.
Apps you use
Click Edit next to a listed app to gain all sorts of controls, including who can see that you are using the app to removing the app altogether. If you want to remove an app, click on the X to the right of the Edit button.
Apps others use
This is where you can control what apps find out about you when you are the friend of the person using the app. Choose exactly what information apps can pull from your profile in 17 different categories.
Instant personalization
Facebook provides profile information about you to outside sites to "personalize your experience." That's Facebook code-speak for looking at your profile to deliver ads and content the company believes you'll be more interested in. Sites listed include Bing, Yelp, Zynga and others.
If you don't want these outside sites to pull your profile Facebook, click the checkbox in this section. You'll get two warnings before it actually happens, so be sure to click through all boxes.
Old versions of Facebook for mobile
If you use an older version of Facebook mobile (such as outdated versions of Facebook for Blackberry), you won't be able to select who can see your updates when posting from that app. You can set it here instead.
Customize your ad settings
Facebook is now a pervasive marketing and advertising tool, and all sorts of businesses want access to your preferences so they can better target you. It’s kind of impossible to use Facebook without leaving some sort of trail of breadcrumbs for advertisers, but you can reduce this in a couple of ways.
First, go to your Ad Settings, located right under App Settings. If you don’t want Facebook to use your preferences in ads, click on the Edit button on the right of the Ads & Friends and Third Party Sites and then change those settings to No One. That means your name won’t get used in an ad for something that you’ve liked. However, this won't prevent sponsored posts from companies you've liked — those items that appear in the news feed, not ads — from being sent with your name. And you'll still receive sponsored posts from companies your friends have liked.
If looking at targeted ads gives you the heebie-jeebies, you can dial down the frequency of the ads by manually hiding stories by each company that targets you. It’s a cumbersome task, but it allows you to get rid of ads that are particularly annoying. You can do this by clicking the small X in the upper right corner of an ad.
Taking these steps will help you control who sees your Facebook page, but you should check every so often to make sure your privacy settings have remained the same.
Still have questions? Leave them in the comments below, and we'll see what we can do to find answers for you.
[astonished woman with laptop image via Shutterstock]
Discussion 
I have tags and photos set to require review before posting to the page, but people can post comments and moreso the concern is that anyone can share posts to my page. Is there a way to require review of comments and shared posts to the page before they appear?
I get notifications saying a Facebook friend tagged me in a comment of a particular picture and when I ask them, they say that they did not do it and that they were not aware. Facebook tags people using a particular user’s name without the user itself not being aware of it. And I’m afraid maybe this auto tagging by Facebook might be doing the same using my name. It’s annoying because sometimes these can be obscene pictures. How do I solve this? Thank You
Facebook may suggest tags when you post photos, but you must manually tag people, there is no auto-tagging of photos of comments. You can opt out of being included in your friends’ suggestions by following these instructions: https://www.facebook.com/help/www/463455293673370?rdrhc. There’s also info on how to remove your tag from photos.
My Galaxy S4 recently did an automatic Facebook update. When I share a picture to Facebook, it gives me the option of who do I want to share with “Public”, “Friends”, “Friends of Friends”. Prior to the update I had the “Custom” option as well in case I wanted to leave certain people out. Is there a way to get this option back?
Well, at least not easily…However, you can create a custom “Friend list” that includes some people but not others and then share to that list. Here’s how:
1) Scroll down to Friends on the left side of your News Feed and click “More”.
2) Click “Create List”.
3) Enter a name for your list and the names of friends you’d like to add. You can add or remove friends from your lists at any time.
4) Click “Create”.
That list will now show up in the Facebook app as an option when you share updates.
I have a business FB page that people ‘like’ and every time I edit my page info., those ‘likers’ get notifications of my change. How can I make changes, add text, etc. without them seeing or getting notifications? Can’t you ‘edit’ page anytime and as many times as you’d like without telling people?
Since new timeline came out 2 weeks ago none of my game posts go onto Timeline so my friends can get gifts. have tried everything now and am really frustrated to the nines. Have sne several reports and heard nothing back, I would so appreciate any help as I am losing friends. Thankyou
I had some bad memories and I had to block one of my contact. I tried to block the contact and want to know if they will still be able to see my old messages which we chatted. What shd. I do in order to prevent my unfriend contact from viewing the old messages. Please help as somebody is trying to harass me.
How can I hide the time status of when I was on Facebook on my mobile device? ie where the mobile icon appears to others with a time beside it when you swipe left.
hi i use to be able to change picture in my secret group , but all of a sudden it has stopped me doing this ,yes i am admin, and its a frustration , as we like to change the picture regularly, any idea why this is occurring and can it be fixed , thanks in advance ken
When people type in my name on facebook and search for me, it says no results found for your query. Why don’t I show up?
I have some pictures that originally were posted for my friends to see, then I moved them to only me and Now i want to move them back to friends but the little icon is locked it WONT let me change the settings…the whole album is set to friends but the individual pics won’t change. Help? No one seems to know how to fix this thank you
Is having a custom audience (people who can view, EXCEPT…....) the same as having a restricted list? Now, here is my question. I have a custom audience set, my mother is not on it, meaning she can’t see the posts. But, If I post something, can she visit one our mutual friends page or activity list who IS a part of my custom audience list, and somehow see my post, or that I posted something? Is there anyway she can tell I am not making posts public to her, through other peoples comments or something else?
i am in some closed groups i picked closed groups not open as didnt want friends seeing, but when i saw my sister on her facebook it came up as a recommended group and said i was a member!! how do i stop this.
Set up a group as a “secret group” and no one can see that it exists who is not a member. For more information on Facebook group types and their respective privacy settings: https://www.facebook.com/help/220336891328465#What-are-the-privacy-options-for-groups
I have a family member that is blocked from my page.
If I post pictures on my page and tag someone else in my family in the photo, and she is friends with that person, can she see the pictures on that person page?
Facebook should respect the privacy settings of the photo. So if you have it set to “Friends”, no one other than friends should be able to see it.
But let’s be realistic here. It wouldn’t be that hard for a family member you’re friends with to copy the photo and share with others. Nor for your blocked family member to see it via another family member showing it to them on their page. So if you really want to keep it private, the safe approach is not to post it on Facebook.
It seems Facebook is in the business of finding ways to gather and expose that to as many people before anyone can find a way to control it and alert the rest of the FB world so they react.
My specific problem is how they are loading friends of my family onto my FB site.
I never authorized that nor was informed by putting my children on my FB profile all their stuff was going on my FB.
Josh do you know how to shut this down?
Thanks
Neil
Hi Neil,
I don’t fully understand the problem you’re describing. What do you mean by “loading friends of my family onto my FB site”? And whose stuff is “going on my FB” that you don’t want to see? Are you talking about updates appearing in your newsfeed from people you aren’t friends with?
Need more info on what’s going on.
Thanks,
Josh
Friends with the check mark, their comments do not show up in your notifications on the upper right hand side. when Close friends with a star update their status, you will get a notification.
Why do certain people who aren’t my friend on Facebook, show up when I try to type in the name of a friend. I may be searching for a friend and a profile picture will show up of the person who isn’t my friend.
Thank you.
Why does a person who isn’t a friend on FB show up when I’m trying to search for someone who is a friend?
To make it easier to find people you know, basic profile information (including names) is always public and will appear in Facebook searches. So when searching for your friends, people who are not your friends will show up too.
Some of my friends cannot see my Friends list, only mutual Friends. I have a Samsung S4 which updates apps automatically. Have I done something wrong?
Facebook Mention Tagging Blocker is an extension for google chrome will block mention and tags from all users or specific users…
It’s available now in chrome store: http://goo.gl/LNpIVq
I have made comments on different posts on facebook in the past, now these comments appear on some search Engine. I was wondering if it would be possible to stop search engines indexing them.
Thanks
Khalid Yusufzai
The page owner controls the privacy settings on a page and the original poster controls the privacy settings for a post. So there’s nothing you can do to change whether or not your comments appear. The only thing you can do is to delete your comment.
Despite deleting private messages on Messenger, the photos I have sent privately continue to reappear under the “Shared Photos” tab. (This can be found when you click the i icon in the corner of a message corresponding to your friend).
I do not want these photos to remain visible. How can I delete them?
How do you block the number of friends you have? I have seen this done on many a facebook page but cannot figure out how to do it.
I noticed that when I post under a Custom List, the friends within that list can click on the custom list icon and see the names of the other people on that list. I noticed that when my friends post to custom lists that I’m on, this is also usually the case as well. But sometimes I just see “Custom List” instead of the names on the list. How do I make that happen? I don’t want the friends on my custom lists seeing the names of the other friends on that list.
I now have 3 facebook accounts ! I know its against the rules but i tried to improve on the original and add a couple pics with the new app on my android and
now i can’nt uninstall the extra fb accounts .
I blocked someone on Facebook but somehow they still managed to see a photo I posted. How is this possible??
how to take yourself off someones close friend list on Facebook?? I don’t want my friend to see my every activity, likes and comments. Is there any way to take myself off their close friend list..and I don’t want to put them in restricted list also. plzz can you help me??
I’m wondering if you could explain the “only me” setting a little further.
I didn’t realize whenever I comment on a post anywhere on Facebook, it was showing up in the feed of all my friends. If I use the “only me” feature, does that mean it will still be seen by the people who are also on that thread, but won’t be posted in the feed of my friends?
I’m a very active Facebook user, but I don’t want to have every post I comment on show up in the feed of all my friends.
The “Only me” setting will only affect the visibility of posts that you make. Comments you make on other people’s posts will be controlled by their post’s privacy settings. If you comment on a post set to “Public”, everyone in the world will be able to see your comments.
What shows up in your friends’ feeds is controlled mostly by Facebook. However, your friends can control (to some degree) what shows up in their feeds based on how they classify you as a friend. “Close friends” will mean they see more of your activity. “Acquaintance” means they will see less.
Hi,
i’d like to know how i can allow people to reply to my comments, directly under my comments, when i’m posting on a public page.
I went through my settings on Facebook but haven’t been able to fix this issue yet. I’d be grateful, if you could help me.
Many Thanks!
Page owners set whether the “threaded comments” are available or not for their pages. There’s nothing you can do as a commenter to change that.
When it first launched, threaded comments were an “opt in” thing for page owners. Not sure if it is still opt in, but not sure why Facebook doesn’t make it available by default.
Hallo Josh,
thank you for your quick reply.I should’ve mentioned, that on this particular public page “threaded comments” are available apparently. There are other comments, under which one can reply directly. Besides the like option, there is a reply option under those comments. To be specific, i am not talking about the comments of the page owner.
Thank You in advance!
If in the Timeline and Tagging Settings I choose “Only Me” for When tagged in a post who do you want to add to the audience - If someone tags me in a photo or post will it still appear in my friends’ news feeds if they aren’t mutual friends with the poster and the poster has selected the audience as Friends (+)? I am concerned the post will still appear in news feeds before I am able to remove the tag. Thanks for your help!
A family member has added me to her restricted list, but I have not responded in kind. Do my posts still appear in her news feed?
If they changed their settings to no longer see your posts (for example, by making you an “acquaintance”), then they will no longer see your posts.
Hello,
How do I keep someone specific from seeing what other people tag me in (ie. Photos, comments etc.) from appearing in their newsfeed (not just talking about my timelime)? I don’t want to block this person or put her on the restricted list. I just want this person to see my wall as it is now - but when someone else tags me or posts on my wall in the future, I don’t want it to appear in their newsfeed. How do I do this? Does the “Who see my future posts?” option also include what other people tag me in? Like if I put the person on that list, would that person not see what people tag me in their newsfeed?
Essentially what I am asking is: How can I keep someone as a friend and make them unfollow me without blocking?
If you change your Timeline and Tagging settings to exclude that person, it should also prevent those items from appearing in their newsfeed. I’m not 100% sure of that answer, but it would make sense to work that way - why would something appear in their newsfeed that is blocked for them on your timeline?
What does it mean when I look at my friend’s favourite sites on her phone and Facebook comes out black with a small padlock in the corner?
Thanks
Why is it that some of my posts are unavailable to my friends due to privacy settings, while others are available? I have not chAnged my privacy settings in the last year.
When you look at the privacy settings for individual posts that your friends can’t see, what is the privacy set for? Public? Friends only? Just Me? Sometimes that Facebook app on your phone will posts things using a different privacy setting than when you post online.
This is driving me crazy. Once i comment on another person’s post, suddenly, i see NO comments again on that post. what setting have i got wrong. very frustrated, ty
From facebook3212016 on April 17, 2014 :: 5:16 pm
I’ve made my profile as private as I can.
Using the “This is what your timeline looks like to: Public” feature, I see a very limited public profile: photo albums are invisible, status updates by me are not visible.
HOWEVER, from Jan 2014 backwards, it shows things I “liked” and “recommended.” I liked this article, I recommended this article, etc.
I can’t seem to get rid of these. (And yes, I have tried the “Limit Past Posts” thing to no avail).
I just want a totally locked down public profile that only shows my name, profile pic and banner image.
Please help!
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