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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
Hi,
I have some frnds, when i open there profile… I cud only see the mutual friends… But for me… When i try to see from other frnds profile how it looks… It shows all the friends list. Profile pis are public. How to chg that???
Plz msg me in fb or mail me.
Go to your “Friends” tab on your Timeline. From the friends list click the “pencil icon” at the top and click “edit privacy”. Then you can set the privacy to “friends”, “only me” or customize.
I don’t want to totally block a few friends but I would prefer they not have the option to comment on my posts. Is there a way to do this? Thanks!
In my news feed I clicked on a photo that many people were sharing. After opening that photo, I could see all of the comments from many random people from all across Facebook. I added my own comment to the thread. My question is, is there a way that I can be notified so that I know who “liked” my comment? These people would be strangers and not my facebook friends, but I still would like to know. Any other time I am notified of who likes my comments, but what about this specific situation? Please help, I have searched near and far for an answer. Thank you.
I don’t have an exact answer for you, but here’s what I’ve seen. If I comment on a friend’s photo and someone likes my comment, I get a notification even if the person who liked my comment is not a friend of mine.
If you comment on a photo from a Facebook Page (i.e., not a person, but a business or similar), I don’t think you will be notified of likes. The reason is probably to avoid your feed from being overwhelmed with notifications if you comment on a popular post and get dozes or even hundreds of people liking it.
Hello, I was wondering how you can hide comments, likes, and posts to a certain group so it does not come up on their news feed, but if they go into your profile then they can still see everything
You can prevent certain people from seeing your posts by setting custom privacy settings when you post, but that would also block them from seeing it in your profile.
I’ve always assumed my Facebook friends see all of my likes; however, apparently that is not the case. Tests of various websites (commercial and personal sites offering a FB like button) along with Facebook postings indicate many of my likes do not show on my friends’ home page. Is this because of a setting on my end or on my friends’ end? If so, what is the specific setting(s)? Thank you!
I assume what you mean is that you’re likes don’t show up on your friends’s news feed? Facebook uses special algorithms to determine what information is shown in your news feed. Those algorithms are intended to show you what Facebook thinks you most want to see based on your own past activity and other factors. In fact, a large percentage of what your friend’s do never show up in your news feed because of these algorithms.
If your friends want to see all of your activity, they can set you as a “close acquaintance”, which tells Facebook to show them pretty much everything. Overdoing this setting will quickly make clear why Facebook limits what it shows you - you can quickly become overwhelmed by the amount of information (much of it uninteresting) coming through.
Two members of my family have some sort of setting where their posts don’t show immediately in my timeline. I can see them all - when I go onto their page - but I do not see their real time posts. I am not upset about this - but I want to know how to do it myself. I have a friend who annoys me a bit and I think if she did not see all my posts in real time ie instead she has to hop onto my page - I would not have the problem. How do I do this?
I don’t understand why I can’t search my post on fb in the groups that i’m in. I used to be able to but something changed and now I can’t. It’s like all my posts were deleted from the groups and I know that’s not true because I can see the post when someone comments on them. I need to be able to search my posts so I can move them to the top of the page Thank you for your time I hope someone will have a answer
My problem is I do not get facebook notifications on my Note 4. Same thing happened on my Note 3.
What I have noticed when comparing it to a friend facebook settings is that I can check “Group Post and Comments” in my notification settings.
Could this be the problem? What can I do to correct this? I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled with no luck.
Any help is appreciated.
When I type in my username it comes up with your username is slightly misspelt we have corrected it for you buy please type in your password but someone elses name comes up why is this
I don’t know any feature of Facebook’s login that would “correct” a “slightly mispelt” username. Are you sure you are on the actual Facebook site and not a phishing site trying to get your login info?
I would like to see who is in a specific group without looking at each individual friend. Is that possible?
Someone posted a profile picture on my facebook page that isn’t me. How do I remove it?
There are also her friends showing as my friends on my page.
Thanks,
Vicky Gabriel
Does this just ‘happen’ to everyone or have I done something wrong that I’m not aware of? “The page you requested cannot be displayed right now. It may be temporarily unavailable the link you clicked on may have expired or you may not have permission to view this page.” I mean, I could understand if someONE blocked me, but it’s ALL of my ‘other’ (seasonal) pages. Do I just need to delete my account?
If someone has my mobile phone number and my Facebook name, and they search me and find me, my profile is private but does Facebook show them my friends for example in their “people more like me” .. do my friends profiles pop up there? Thanx.
By default, anyone can see your Facebook friends. To change that:
1. Go to your timeline
2. On the top right corner of the Friends widget, you’ll see a little pencil icon to edit. Click on that.
3. From there, you can change who can see your friends list in your timeline.
I noticed that two of my “friends” were now under “acquaintances” on my FB page when I look at their profile page. I did not change their status as my friend so does this mean that THEY changed MY status from a “friend” to an “acquaintance”?
Thank you
Is there a way to change the settings so that it doesn’t show when you are on FB? I hate that people can see and know when i’m on or when i was on last.
How someone that is not my friend can write on my pictures? that pictures were “custom” and that person liked and commented on them, I’m so upset, because my Facebook is private and this happened :(
I’ve hidden all my future posts from Person X. However, we have a mutual friend, Person Y, that I just tagged in a post. If Person X goes to my profile, will they still see the post because our mutual friend was tagged in it, even though my privacy settings have posts hid from them?
After I send a private message (chat) to someone I see a ‘seen’ notification with a time.
My question is can I do something on my end to keep that from showing up on their end? What I mean is, what if I get a private message and don’t want the sender to know I’ve seen it?
the restricted friend is a member of a private group I admin. I want to restrict the person from my personal page, but not the group. Will this friend still see my posts and comments in the group?
Hi,
I was bought a new phone for Christmas & also put on my boyfriends plan.
I don’t know if that has anything to do with this.
How does he see when I comment or like something that is on MY friends post?
These are NOT mutual friends.
Why can’t I see the same of him?
I never see notifications of when he has commented or liked, unless it is on a post of someone we are mutual friends with, and I’ve commented on that post too.
Does he have a special alert setting on Facebook for me? Or on my phone??
Perplexed. :/
Cat
In your Facebook settings, under Notifications, you can choose to be notified when a “Close Friend” does something. He probably has you identified as a “Close Friend” in his friend listing, but you don’t have him listed as one. That’s why you’re seeing different things.
Go here to see or change your Notification settings: https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=notifications&view;
If someone friend requests you but you don’t accept their request, can they see your profile if you send them a private message?
Certain basic aspects of your profile are visible to anyone, whether you are friends or not. However, sending someone a private message shouldn’t enable them to see more of your profile than would otherwise be available to non-friends.
When I click on a link to join my friends game it tells me Failed!
You must be a friend of the user in order to do this. But we are friends. This happens to all the friends I try to add. What is wrong
If 2 yrs ago I posted a photo to my timeline with a security setting of ‘only me’ and now I decided to change that setting to “friends”, will that photo (or a notification of that photo) suddenly appear on my friends timelines, or would they continue to not be aware of the change unless they intentionally reviewed my timeline or photos?
My ex’s new girlfriend deleted me as a friend on my ex’s Facebook account. I sent him a new friend request about 3 months ago, but he declined the request. At that time, the button to “add friend” was still there. Then about a month ago, I noticed that the button to “add friend” was gone, but there is still a “send message” button. My ex and I are still friends and we still hang out. I asked him what he did to make it so I couldn’t send him a friend request anymore and he said he had no idea what I was talking about. I am NOT blocked from his page, and we do have MANY mutual Facebook friends. Yet for other friends of mine, if they go to his profile, the “add friend” button is there. How is it possible to single out ONE person that can’t add you as a friend but can still message you and see your page, when you have many mutual friends??? I have been searching for a month for the answer to this question but no answers…. Could this be an isolated incident, a glitch in his profile or mine? Please help as this is really stressing me out!!! Thanks!
I want to add: when he declined the friend request I’d sent him, the “add friend” button was still there AFTER he had declined the request. So it isnt that he checked that he does not know me outside of Facebook, or the add friend button probably would have disappeared right then. I have not sent a friend request since then. It literally is like the button disappeared overnight! Please explain! Thanks so much!
When I’m on fb is there a way I could private this feature , when I go to message I could see who’s on line using fb . I don’t care for people seeing that when I’m on line. How can u remove that green dot showing your online.????
on left hand side of facebook homepage till 2 days ago when all disapeared but 1 i f i click more the others are there but as im a singer i nead all of them in line on left then if anyone wants an act you can see a new adding against it.How can I put all my groups back on left hand side as they were PLEASE
i wanted to change my facebook name cos am married but i saw another name but still mu picture. pls i want this issue solved.
The option who can see my future posts is set to “Public”. The comment has been removed and restored several times, but only friends can see it. I am very new on Facebook and so far I have only two friends, - would that make Facebook think I am a fake user?
I posted something and I set it to be viewed by “only me”. If I later change it to “public” will it show up on everyone’s timelines as if I just posted it? Or will it just be viewable by other people on my page?
I recently gave my old laptop to my husband. He has a FB account but actually never uses it. I have my FB account open on my new laptop but noticed today that any private messages that are being sent to me are flashing up in the top right hand corner of my husband’s laptop. He doesn’t even have FB open! How on earth does that happen and how do I stop it?
I set up what I call a “fake Facebook” account so I could read a few blogs on FB get some freebies but not use my real name and I don’t friend people with it, because I had an issue with my ex stalking me. I make sure not to look anyone up, and have specific people blocked just in case. But today I looked at the people you may know list, and my neighbors were on it.. how? Is it location? Or what?
If so, there is a setting called “Continuous Contacts Uploads”. See if that is set to “Off”. Otherwise Facebook will continuously upload your address book and suggest them as Facebook friends.
I took some pictures for a public event and I want to share them on their facebook page, but I can’t.
Can I check public to send the photos, then unclick after sending them so I am back to friends only?
I sometimes get posts on my newsfeed which I cannot comment upon. I don’t want to see those posts.
For example if my friend comments upon a post from his friend who is not also my friend then I will see the original post and I will see all the comments including my friend’s. But I will not be able to add a comment myself.
Is there a way to not show posts on my timeline if I am not able to comment on them?
From Terry on September 27, 2014 :: 12:32 pm
Hello! I have searched for and found a person I would like to friend on Facebook. I sent a friend request as well as a message. I would like to know if they read my message and wonder if you can help me out, please. My searches for help tell me I should see a checkmark or a filled in circle. I don’t see either of those icons on any message I have sent. Even those that I know were read. Many thanks for your help.
Reply
From Phil Lieberman on September 27, 2014 :: 12:57 pm
It seems that some people set their privacy settings so that you cannot tell whether they saw your message.
Do you have any advice concerning the question I posted?
Reply