Facebook allows users to share a wide range of personal information on their profile, including their birthday. While many people enjoy receiving birthday wishes from friends on Facebook, others prefer to keep their birthday private for personal reasons. Fortunately, Facebook provides options to hide your birthday from your timeline and prevent others from seeing the date.
Why would I want to hide my birthday on Facebook?
There are a few common reasons why someone may want to hide their birthday on Facebook:
- Privacy – You don’t want the exact date of your birthday visible to everyone.
- Security – Posting your exact birthdate can help scammers or hackers attempting to steal your identity.
- Avoid unwanted attention – You don’t want floods of birthday wishes or people feeling obligated to post on your timeline.
- Professionalism – You want to keep your social media presence professional and keep personal details private.
- Safety – For example, if you’re a woman who doesn’t want your exact age visible to all for safety reasons.
While most Facebook users enjoy birthday wishes from friends, it’s understandable if you’re private, safety-conscious, or simply want to avoid unwanted attention on your special day. Hiding your birthday takes just a few simple steps.
How to hide your birthday on Facebook
Here are step-by-step instructions to hide your birthday on Facebook:
- Go to your Facebook profile page and click on the ‘About’ section
- Click on the ‘Contact and Basic Info’ edit button
- Remove the date from the Birthday field
- Click ‘Review Changes’
- Hit ‘Save Changes’ to confirm
Once you remove the birthday date from your About section, your birthday will no longer show up on your profile or in your cover photo header.
Settings to check
In addition to removing your birthday date, there are a few other settings you should check to maximize privacy:
- Show in My Profile? – Go to your profile, click the three dots in the intro box and make sure ‘Show in My Profile’ is toggled off.
- Birthday in profile sidebar – Under the same three dots menu, toggle off ‘Show in Profile Sidebar’
- Birthday notifications – Go to Settings > Notifications > Birthdays > Edit Preferences and select ‘No Preview’
With these steps, your birthday will be hidden from public view. However, your Facebook friends can still see your birthdate if they save it to their own contacts or have it set in their memory from previous years.
What friends can still see
Even if you hide your birthday, some friends will still be able to see it:
- Friends who have previously saved your birthday to their calendars or contacts will still have the date visible.
- Facebook uses saved birthdays to show reminders even if the date is no longer public.
- Friends who have interacted with previous birthday posts or been notified by Facebook before will have your date in their memory.
- Facebook may still include your birthday in some algorithms and notifications to close friends.
In other words, hiding your birthday doesn’t delete it from your friends’ memories or Facebook’s backend systems. Those who are determined to find out your birthday still can. But it does successfully remove your birthdate from public visibility and search results.
Birthday visibility settings
In addition to fully hiding your birthday, Facebook has some customizable visibility settings:
| Setting | Who can see |
|---|---|
| Only Me | No one else. Your birthday does not appear anywhere. |
| Friends | Your friends list and friend of friends if you allow it. |
| Friends except… | Block specific friends from seeing it. |
| Specific friends… | Only allow certain friends you choose to view it. |
| Public | Allow your birthday to be visible to everyone. |
Customize these visibility settings when editing your About section. “Friends except…” and “Specific friends…” options let you fine-tune visibility for different friend lists.
Limitations
While you can fully hide your birthday date from your profile, there are some places it may still appear:
- Facebook Messenger – friends may still see your birthday in chat if they have it saved.
- Shared calendars/events – if you’ve added your birthday it remains visible.
- Ads – Facebook’s advertising algorithm can still use your birthday.
- Downloadable info – anyone who downloads their Facebook data including your info will see it.
- FGuidance – Facebook uses birthday for age guidance and restrictions.
In other words, hiding your Facebook birthday prevents it from being publicly visible or searchable. But remnants of your birthday do still exist in various places across Facebook’s systems and your friends’ memories.
Should you fully delete your birthday?
Is it worth fully deleting your birthday from Facebook altogether? Here are some pros and cons to consider:
Pros
- Total privacy – no possibility of your birthday creeping out anywhere.
- Added security – removes any risk of identity theft from a visible birthdate.
- No birthday notifications – tells Facebook to stop alerting your friends about your birthday.
- Start fresh – gives you a blank slate if you want to add it back selectively later.
Cons
- Inconvenient to add back – you’d have to re-enter and re-share your birthday date with everyone.
- Loses info – removes useful data Facebook uses for ads, memories, etc.
- Friends remember – doesn’t actually delete the date from friends who have it saved already.
- ID verification – may make age verification tricky if needed for purchases, dating apps, etc.
Fully removing your birthday takes more effort but guarantees total privacy. Whereas the visibility settings still leave potential remnants. Consider your personal privacy needs and convenience when deciding.
How friends can hide your birthday
Just as you can hide your own birthday on Facebook, you can also hide friends’ birthdays from your own News Feed.
To hide a friend’s birthday:
- Go to your Notifications settings
- Select ‘Birthdays’
- Click ‘Edit Preferences’ next to ‘Upcoming’
- Uncheck your friend’s name
- Click ‘Save Changes’
This stops Facebook from alerting you about that friend’s birthday. However, it doesn’t block you from seeing birthday posts if you visit their profile.
Conclusion
Facebook makes it simple to hide your birthday from public view if you want more privacy or don’t like the attention. Simply removing your birthdate from your profile goes a long way. Checking additional visibility settings maximizes privacy from friends seeing your special day.
Fully deleting your birthday altogether guarantees total privacy but loses Facebook’s birthday reminders and features. Consider your personal preferences and privacy needs. With Facebook’s customizable settings, you can keep your birthday as private as you want.