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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
My question is this my boyfriend says that he’s deleted and blocked his ex girlfriend on facebook. When they were together she had tagged and posted various photos of them together, if he has blocked and deleted her would the tagged photos that she posted of them still appear on his Facebook wall?
I blocked notifications in the wrong place I guess. And can not get notifications from a friend anymore.
I went into the friends pull down setting/Report or Block/Block Notifications - to which there is a “Block Notifications” button you can click, along with other Block Friend and Report etc.
Note: This WAS NOT the check you can turn off and on at the top of that drop down window for “Get Notifications”
I thought I could just turn them back on later, but when I go back in to that menu, that is not reversible. IT’S GONE!
I have checked (turn on) the “get notification”, but I still don’t get any Timeline posts, EVER.
I really don’t want this person to know that I blocked their posts temporarily,(but inadvertently forever) so I don’t want to turn anything on to bring attention to it.
Is there some way to undo the “block notification” without having to send a friend request?
I’ve Never Been A Facebook User Not I
By D.K. Milgrim-Heath©2010
I’ve never been a Facebook user not I-
No matter what people say I won’t comply!
Many people in my life ask me to join their Facebook site-
But I’m too private to go there onto the site.
Yes- I’m a writer with by my work quite that’s my identity-
Facebook won’t share anything with the world of me you see.
I don’t want strangers or privacy problems on a public Facebook account-
That people read about with Facebook that can mount.
About bullying accounts that have caused death due to emotional trauma-
That’s In any life that’s the frailty of human nature cruelty and its drama.
My three children have Facebook accounts and that’s just fine-
Never will I open the internet doors to make a Facebook site mine!
I really do admire the founder of Facebook quite the young entrepreneur-
That changed the world by his invention Facebook forevermore!
Of course my children, family and friends know that I’m real-
Not a made-up human but one with feelings as a human can feel!
On internet sites we can all fantasize what we want, feel and have that need to be-
I’m just too private except when it comes to my writing that describes the real me!
I have noticed that some comments by my friends show up on my laptop but do not appear on my iPhone.
I need to post a picture of some custom gunsmithing that was done by a local gunsmith, he would like me to post the picture on his page. However, I am a teacher and would NOT like all my former students and fellow teachers to see it, who are my friends…. Can this be done?
Fan pages are public and there is no way to post anonymously. If you don’t want others to know the photo is coming from you, it would be best to send him the photo and have hi post it on the page.
I realize that participating in Facebook should be considered public, but….
If I choose to post a comment on a public photo, I don’t mind that my comment is visible, but I DON’T want it announced to others “PixiTrix commented on Distracify’s post”. I don’t want someone to then click on and see what I wrote if they weren’t following the post in the first place.
Also, I don’t want my activity to show up on the ticker on the side. Is there a way to turn both of these things off?
Hi Josh,
Whenever I log on to facebook, a friends’ friends page is on my homepage - every time the last few days. How can I get this off, and my homepage back? Thanks!
I see it only happens on 1 of my computers and not the other, and I’ve tried everything I can think of on Facebook with the settings, and cleaning the computer, but maybe I’ve missed something. Can you help? Please. Thanks!
Ellen
What do you mean by “on my homepage”? You mean that you are logged in as your friends’ frind? Or that you see comments from your friend’s friend appearing in your newsfeed?
Hi, yes my problem is still happening. Everytime I sign onto facebook my friends homepage is 1st to open and stays there. Its like I’m using her homepage. She is still my friend, I just don’t want to see her homepage first everytime I open up facebook. How can I restore my old homepage back?
Thanks!
So when I post in a private group, i can see who has seen the post. On the list of people who have seen the post some have a logo on the right side. One particular post O am wondering about, 20 people have seen, most I am friends with. Only one person has a blue logo to the right of their name ans one (I am not friends with) has a grey…the reat have none. Why is this?
My friend has an Asus and a s3 I have a s4 and note 10.1 the problem is that he can add a picture and a photo in comments why can’t I through both fone and note i un installed reinstalled and no updates no nothing I asked fb with no response I asked my friends with no response as they don’t know can you help
Anyone else experience every group page search return ‘no result’ every time? I can search something I know will have results and still get “no result” it happens on any device or browser. Is it an issue with my settings? I could search and recently 3-4 weeks this has started to happen.
I posted on here but no response but I found it was an android problem with the app it doesn’t allow you to have a camera a option thru comments tho I can thru my explorer so db needs to update their app
I hope I can explain this so you understand. If I type in a name of a peron that is not my friend and I click in the search box all these options show up and I can see certain things that you can not see on their page. Tnen I can do the same thing on a diffrent perons page and not s many options pop up how d you control that
Not sure what information you’re seeing in search that you don’t see on someone’s page, I would think it would be the same. However, you don’t control what information you see of other people in search, Facebook controls that (and, to some degree, a user’s privacy settings).
I have experienced similar to Shannon. I would type a friends’ name, “Amanda Smith” and could further “search” in a dropdown menu things like “Posts Amanda Smith likes”, and “Photos of Amanda Smith”. Now when I want to further search after typing in Amanda Smith I get the message “There are no results for Amanda Smith”. Would this now be occuring if I have been “blocked” by Amanda Smith or “restricted”? I would like my own settings to reflect a “No results” return, but I don’t know how to make this happen. Advise?
Facebook used to have a setting that would prevent you from being found in search. However, that has been removed. Here is Facebook’s explaination for why:
“You may have heard that we’re in the process of removing a setting that allowed people to choose who could look them up by name in search. The setting was called “Who can look up my Timeline by name?”
When this setting was created, Facebook was a directory for college students and search was the only way people could look each other up. Today there are many ways to find your Timeline, which this setting doesn’t cover. For example, photo tags of you can link to your Timeline and people can tag you in posts which also link to your Timeline.
Because the setting isn’t as useful as it was before, we removed it for most people and built new tools like privacy shortcuts, to help you better control who can see your stuff across Facebook.
If you’re in the small percentage of people who still have the setting, we’ll notify you about this change at the top of your News Feed. Once this setting is removed, people will be able to find your Timeline in search by name but won’t be able to see anything you haven’t already shared with them when they get there.”
Hi, I’m a member of a closed group. Recently members friends have started to see ads for this group as suggested groups they should join with photos of members underneath.
Is there anyway of stopping this kind of advertising that we don’t want without changing the group to secret?
I am one of the (few?) people who seem to have received an updated version of the facebook newsfeed page. It no longer contains a “Today” section and no longer shows events like birthdays. Does anyone know if I can get that back?
when ever i login on mobile in facebook near get a symbole of mobile near my profile name . i dont want see mobile symble
why, after commenting on another’s post, can I then see NO other comments to that post by others? this has been happening forever, and is very frustrating
I’m a member of several Facebook groups such as old Photos of my town. If I change “who can see my future posts” to “only me” will this apply to just my timeline or to any posts I post in groups?
Thanks
Items you post in groups or fan pages are controlled by the group (or fan page) settings, not your privacy settings.
Hi the problem is I posted a photo on my boyfriends page it came up My name an arrow another friends name . I tried to remove the photo because it is a guy friends name why did it do that???? and then my boyfriends name is written under our names I tried to delete it and it comes up “none “It’s causing big promblems please HELP
Hello!
I hope someone can help me.
Is it some how possible for me to delete/hide all “likes” my ex-girlfriend has posted trough the past year?
Even though i blocked her, and deleted her it will still appear on my wall.
It’s not that “funny” to, have to look trough several years of facebook timelines to see where there are something to be removed.
And I think it’s weird that I have to delete whole pictures with 40-50 likes because i wan’t 1 gone…
Can someone help me, please?
Kind regards Me.
Hi, Just wondering if anyone knows how to stop pictures from my friends showing up as a banner on top of my friends feed since Facebook updated recently. Its really annoying especially photos of friends I dont talk to much or friends families. Thanks.
if you block someone or a group of people from seeing your status updates on facebook, but later decide to remove them so they are able to see everything you write, do they automatically get to see the posts you didnt want them to see in the first place?
for example, my status updates all my friends see them, but i stopped a few from reading them to save some agro 6 months ago. i want to remove them again so they can see my future posts, but im unsure if they will then be able to see what iv wrote in the past 6 months i wanted hidden from them??
Hi I have a question. I have my status/posts set to ‘custom’,‘friends’,‘except for’. There are a few people that I am ‘friends’ with but who I don’t really want to see what I post all the time.
I took a pic with my iphone and posted it to F/B. One of the people who is on the ‘except for’ list commented on my pic.
I’ve checked all settings and they are set to ‘custom’. What am I missing? How did this person see my post? Thanks for any help you can provide.
I’ve seen situations where certain apps may have different default posting options than your main Facebook settings. So if the photo app on your iPhone is set to post publicly, that’s what will happen, even if your default Facebook setting is “Friends, but not Tom”.
Because we’ve seen so many of these types of privacy situations over the years with Facebook, our advice remains never to post anything on Facebook you’re not comfortable with others seeing, no matter what your privacy settings are.
Hey, thanks for the reply Josh. I checked and sure enough the setting is for ‘friends’. Actually, on my ipod touch (not a phone) there isn’t a setting for ‘custom’, it’s just for ‘friends’. Good to know! Thanks again.
Hi,
Thanks for writing this page. I think it’s very thorough. I’ve learned new things about Facebook even though I thought I knew quite a bit!
I realize that when I “Like” or “Comment” on a public page or group that it can show-up on my friends’ newsfeeds. I’m not concerned that they can see these, but what I am concerned about is the frequency of which my activity appears on their feeds.
I know that Facebook uses algorithms that attempt to show people things they’d be interested in, and also that people who have designated me as a “close friend” can see just about all my activity. My concern is that people who have not designated me as such are seeing my likes and comments too often. I’m worried I might be annoying people, because I often comment/like on public pages. Does Facebook use an algorithm that reduces the number of my likes and comments on their newsfeed or are they seeing everything?
I hope I’ve described this clearly. Thanks for reading.
Facebook’s algorithms are designed to limit what friends see of your likes and comments. If you want to see how much a of a difference the algorithm makes, go into your Friend setting and set a bunch of people to “Close Friends”, so you see practically everything they do. You will be amazed at how much garbage, er “less important updates”, comes through.
I added someone in my “close friend” list but surprisingly its still empty. even though I can see all his posts on his timeline ( both shared public or friends). just want to know how has he done that? and I’m on his close friend list, I want to take myself off that list. I searched google but found nothing. Please if you can help me.
When I comment on websites that require a Facebook login, how do I hide my job title? For example, it reads (left to right) “My Name, Top Commenter, Job Title and Location”. I only want it to display my name. Can anyone help?
Certain basic information about you on Facebook is always publicly available. So comment systems that chose to display that information, can. Note that we also have a Facebook login option for commenting, but we only pull in your profile picture and name.
It’s possible that some commenting systems may give you the option on which Facebook info to share. Discus is one of the most popular on the web. You can login here and see what you can change: https://disqus.com/ (the site wasn’t working for me so I couldn’t test it).
In any regard, my advice is to remove any information from Facebook you don’t want publicly displayed, as trying to control it will be very difficult.
Hi, I restricted a few people then put them back to regular friends status and unchecked the restricted list. These people did go back to being on my restricted list. Was I suppose to update something so they would stay unrestrited? Help me please I have some angry people on my hands.
I savour, cause I found just what I used to be having a look for. You have ended my 4 day lengthy hunt! God Bless you man. Have a nice day. Bye
I have an issue with a “Community Organization” I have been a follower of for a few years. About 6 months ago something happened and now I can only share their posts. They still show up on my feed and the page lists me as “Liked” and “Following”, but I cannot like or comment on any of their posts… only share them. I have contacted the pages admins and they assure me that I am not on any list that they have for being blocked or restricted. They have advised me to check through my settings to attempt correcting the problem, but I cannot find anything that will correct it. I have also tried contacting anyone at FB to no avail. Tried “unliking” and then “liking” the page again to hopefully reset it… no dice. getting really frustrated.
Sto visitando questo forum, ed ho trovato informazioni utili. Penso che tornerò di frequente da queste parti. Un saluto e ringrazio per la lettura!
Hi, I want to stop others seeing the groups on my timeline which I have joined on Facebook.
Go to the groups section in your timeline and click on the little pencil icon in the upper right corner to edit, the click “Hide Section”. That should do it.
I belong to several groups and everytime I make a comment or post it is appearing on my timeline for all of my friends to see. I still want to stay active and receive e-mails from these groups but, don’t want everyone on my timeline to see this activity.
While I don’t mind that most of FB friends see my “likes” (although I wish it wasn’t so frequent), I do mind that certain people do and would like to limit that. If I add them to my “restricted” list, will they no longer see my “likes”? If not, is there any other way to limit this without “unfriending” the person?
I posted something and I set it to be viewed by “only me”. If I want to change it to “public” will it show up on everyone’s timelines that I just posted it? Or will it just be viewable by other people on my page?
From iten bayoumy on March 14, 2014 :: 11:00 am
How do I change the FB pictures they choose to show when I click on “family”? I love my family but don’t want to see this pic every day. Thoughts?
Reply