Your Facebook cover photo is the large horizontal image that appears at the top of your profile. It helps express your personality and interests. However, you may sometimes want to temporarily hide or remove your cover photo for privacy or other reasons.
Why Would You Want to Hide Your Cover Photo?
There are a few common reasons why someone might want to hide their Facebook cover photo:
- You want to take a break from social media or maintain your privacy for a period of time.
- You are applying for jobs and don’t want employers seeing certain images.
- You are in a new relationship and don’t want your ex to see your activities.
- You are going through personal issues and don’t want to share details publicly.
- You want to revamp your profile but aren’t ready to upload a new cover photo.
Whatever your reasons, there are a couple of ways to easily hide your Facebook cover photo temporarily or permanently.
How to Temporarily Hide Your Cover Photo
If you just want to briefly hide your cover photo from public view, here are the steps:
- Go to your profile page and click on your cover photo to open the cover photo dialog box.
- Click on the option that says “Hide Cover Photo.”
- A default background will appear in place of your cover photo.
- Whenever you are ready to show your cover photo again, go back to the cover photo dialog box and click “Show Cover Photo.”
Hiding your cover photo this way is completely reversible – you can toggle the visibility on and off as needed. Your actual cover photo file will remain saved so you can easily restore it.
How to Permanently Remove Your Cover Photo
If you want to permanently delete your cover photo from Facebook, it takes just an extra step:
- Go through the steps above to temporarily hide your cover photo.
- With your cover photo hidden, go to your profile, click the camera icon and select “Update Cover Photo.”
- Click “Remove Current Cover Photo” and confirm.
This will delete your cover photo file from Facebook. The generic background will remain in its place unless you upload a new cover photo.
Other Cover Photo Privacy Options
In addition to hiding or removing your cover photo completely, you have a few other options:
- Restrict visibility – You can use the audience selector when uploading a cover photo to control who can see it. Choose “Only Me” to make it private.
- Block someone – If you block a specific person, they will not be able to see your cover photo or any of your profile info.
- Disable profile viewing – You can use the “Who can look me up?” setting to disable non-friends from viewing your profile. This will hide your cover photo as well.
Using these privacy tools, you can keep your cover photo visible to certain audiences only.
What Appears When You Hide Your Cover Photo?
When you hide your cover photo on Facebook, a generic background appears in its place. Here are some examples:
- A solid blue or gray background.
- A blurred nature landscape.
- Subtle patterns like overlapping circles.
The exact image may vary and can change from time to time. But in general it will be a non-personalized, default background image provided by Facebook.
Can Other People Tell You Hid Your Cover Photo?
When you hide your cover photo, it is not obvious to viewers that you intentionally removed something. Since default backgrounds appear frequently, most people will not realize your cover photo is hidden.
The exceptions are:
- Friends who have recently seen your actual cover photo – they may realize it changed suddenly.
- People visiting your profile for the first time – they will not know you ever had a different cover photo.
But in general, hiding your cover photo is discrete. Unless you tell someone it is hidden, they are unlikely to notice.
Pro Tips for Hiding Your Cover Photo
To ensure your hidden cover photo goes undetected, here are some tips:
- Don’t make dramatic changes right before hiding it. Gradually transitioning your cover photo over time is less conspicuous.
- Wait a while before revealing your cover photo again. A few weeks or months will make the change less obvious.
- Avoid mentioning you hid your cover photo. Don’t post status updates about taking a break from social media.
- Keep your profile pic unchanged. Drastically altering your profile and cover photos simultaneously will draw attention.
Being strategic when hiding and showing your cover photo will allow you to toggle visibility seamlessly. No one will be the wiser!
Can You Recover a Deleted Cover Photo?
If you permanently deleted your cover photo, is it possible to get it back? Unfortunately, no. Once removed, your original cover photo file is gone for good. Facebook does not store or recover deleted photos.
However, here are some options if you regret removing your cover photo:
- If you still have the image file saved elsewhere (like on your computer or phone), reupload it to Facebook as a new cover photo.
- See if any friends or followers have your cover photo saved in screenshots – ask them to send you a copy.
- Check Facebook’s “On This Day” feature to resurface old posts that may display your previous cover photo.
- See if the image is archived on the Wayback Machine website, which periodically archives Facebook pages.
Unless you can obtain the image through another source, there is unfortunately no way to recover a deleted Facebook cover photo from their servers. Removing it permanently destroys the only copy.
Mistakes to Avoid When Hiding Your Cover Photo
Hiding your Facebook cover photo usually goes smoothly, but here are some mistakes to avoid:
| Mistake | Potential consequence |
|---|---|
| Forgetting to toggle your cover photo back to public when wanted | Your cover photo remains hidden accidentally |
| Deleting your cover photo when you just meant to temporarily hide it | Losing your cover photo forever |
| Restricting visibility using the wrong audience during upload | Cover photo hidden from the wrong people |
| Updating profile and cover photos simultaneously | Arousing suspicion you are hiding something |
Being mindful when managing the visibility settings of your cover photo will prevent regrets down the road.
Conclusion
Hiding or removing your Facebook cover photo is simple using the steps outlined above. With just a few clicks, you can toggle visibility on and off or delete your cover photo permanently.
Keep these tips in mind for seamlessly managing your cover photo privacy:
- Change visibility gradually over time to avoid detection
- Remember that deletion is permanent – there is no recovery!
- Use privacy tools like audience selectors and blocking strategically
- Avoid drastic simultaneous profile changes
With Facebook’s customizable cover photo settings, you are in control. You can show off the real you or keep things private – the choice is yours!
Sources
- https://mashable.com/article/how-to-hide-remove-delete-facebook-cover-photo
- https://www.facebook.com/help/120939471321735
- https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/hide-facebook-cover-photo-simple-steps/
- https://www.groovypost.com/howto/facebook-cover-photo-size/
- https://wallstreetmojo.com/facebook-cover-photo-size/