Facebook allows you to connect with friends, family, coworkers, and more. While most of these connections are positive, there may be times when you want to limit what certain people see about you on Facebook without completely unfriending or blocking them. Luckily, Facebook offers options to restrict what posts friends can view, as well as the ability to completely hide your friends list from specific people.
Why Would You Want to Hide Friends on Facebook?
There are a few key reasons why someone might want to hide their Facebook friends list:
Privacy Concerns
You may not want some people to see your full friends list for privacy reasons. For example, if you have coworkers, distant acquaintances, or new connections among your Facebook friends, you may not want them to be able to browse the rest of your friends list and see who else you know. Hiding your list prevents them from snooping on your other connections.
Avoid Offending Certain Connections
In some cases, you may wish to hide certain friends from seeing other friends out of courtesy. For example, if you have family members or friends from different social circles among your Facebook friends, you may wish to prevent them from interacting or getting offended by seeing each other. Hiding your friends list allows you to manage these separate connections discretely.
Control What Information People Access About You
Your Facebook friends list can reveal a lot about your interests, affiliations, location, and more based on who you connect with. By hiding your list from certain people, you limit the amount of information they can gather about you through your friend connections. This allows you to reveal what you want to on your own terms.
Sever Ties Without “Unfriending”
Rather than unfriend someone completely, hiding your friends list from them allows you to subtly distance yourself online. This can be useful for winding down obsolete connections without having an outright confrontation about severing the online friendship. It also leaves the door open to easily reconnect in the future if circumstances change.
How to Hide Your Facebook Friends List from Specific People
Facebook offers customization settings that allow you to control who can see your friends list. You can hide your list from individual connections, or hide it from everyone except your own approved list.
Hide List from Individuals
To prevent specific people from seeing your Facebook friends list:
1. Click on the down arrow at the top right of any Facebook page and select “Settings & Privacy”
2. Select “Settings”
3. Click “Privacy” in the left menu
4. Under “How people can find and contact you,” click “Edit” beside “Who can see your friends list”
5. Change the setting from “Public” to “Friends except…”
6. Type in the name(s) of any friends or connections you wish to exclude from seeing your list
7. Click “Confirm” to save the changes
This will completely block the selected individuals from accessing your friends list when they view your profile.
Hide List from Everyone Except Your Approved List
For maximum privacy, you can hide your Facebook friends list from anyone except a customized approved list:
1. Follow steps 1-5 above
2. Change the setting from “Public” to “Only Me”
3. Click on “Edit” next to “Except”
4. Type the names of friends you wish to allow seeing your friends list
5. Click “Confirm”
This will make your list invisible to all connections except those you explicitly permit.
Other Ways to Limit Friend Profile Viewing
In addition to your main friends list visibility, you have other options to control who can see and interact with your friends on Facebook:
Manage Tags and Mentions
When other people tag you or mention your name in posts/comments, it creates a link to your profile. Adjust your tagging and mentioning preferences in your privacy settings.
Limit Old Posts
Posts you’ve been tagged in can expose your connections. You can “Limit Old Posts” so only certain people see posts you’re tagged in from more than 1 year ago.
Review Friend Requests
Friend requests notify the recipient of mutual friends to encourage connecting. But this exposes your connections. Review and delete incoming requests to prevent this.
Monitor Your Own Posts
When you actively post, tag, or mention connections, you are exposing those connections publicly. Be thoughtful about who sees your posts.
Pros and Cons of Hiding Your Facebook Friends
Hiding your Facebook friends list has advantages, but also some potential drawbacks to consider:
Pros
- Increases privacy and protects sensitive info about connections
- Lets you manage different audiences and social circles discretely
- Limits what others can find out about you via your friends
- Avoids awkwardness or offense over certain online friend connections
- Allows subtle distancing from unwanted connections
Cons
- Can seem secretive if you hide friends without explanation
- May be technically complicated for some users
- Connections may still expose links to you via mutual posts and tags
- Doesn’t work on some alternate platforms like Messenger
- You lose reciprocal visibility into hidden connections’ friend lists
Other Facebook Privacy Tips
In addition to tweaking your friends visibility settings, here are some other Facebook privacy tips:
- Frequently review and adjust your privacy settings
- Be selective in accepting friend requests from people you do not know
- Unfriend inactive connections you no longer interact with
- Be thoughtful about personal info you add to your profile
- Do not accept tags from strangers
- Screenshot inappropriate content rather than sharing
- Hover over dubious links to inspect before clicking
- Turn off location sharing and limit old location tags
- Use secure passwords and change them frequently
- Enable two-factor authentication
- Limit ad targeting in your Ad Preferences
- Report spam, abuse, and fake accounts
Conclusion
While Facebook provides tools to connect with friends and meet new people, oversharing can compromise your privacy. Making use of friends list and profile viewing limitations gives you greater control over who interacts with you and accesses your personal information online. Being thoughtful about what you post yourself is also key to maintaining your privacy on social platforms.
| Pros of Hiding Facebook Friends | Cons of Hiding Facebook Friends |
|---|---|
| Increases privacy | Can seem secretive |
| Manages different audiences | Tech complications |
| Limits personal info exposure | Mutual connections still linked |
| Avoids awkwardness | Limits your visibility |
| Allows subtle distancing | Doesn’t work on Messenger |