With over 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is one of the most popular social media platforms worldwide. While Facebook can help you stay connected with friends and family, you may wish to limit who can see certain parts of your profile and activity.
Facebook’s privacy settings allow you to choose exactly who can view your posts, photos, friends list, and other profile information. You can restrict access to just your friends, friends of friends, or make your profile completely public.
Why Hide Your Facebook Profile?
There are a few key reasons why someone may want to hide or limit their Facebook profile:
- Privacy – To prevent strangers, distant acquaintances or other unwanted connections from viewing your information.
- Safety – To avoid being targeted by scammers or cybercriminals if too much personal information is public.
- Professionalism – To maintain a separation between your personal and professional lives if you’re connected with coworkers.
- Control – To decide exactly who can see and engage with your profile and content.
Restricting your profile visibility gives you greater control over your privacy and online experience. You get to determine what information is appropriate to share with different connections on Facebook.
How to Hide Your Facebook Profile from Non-Friends
If you want to hide your Facebook profile from people who are not friends with you, there are a couple of options:
Adjust Privacy Settings
Facebook’s main privacy settings allow you to limit profile visibility in a few ways:
- Go to Settings & Privacy > Settings and navigate to the Privacy tab
- Under the heading “Who can see your future posts?” click on the audience selector. Choose from:
- Public – Anyone including people off Facebook
- Friends – Your friends on Facebook
- Friends except… – Exclude specific friends or lists
- Specific friends – Only people and Lists you select
- Only me
- Scroll down and adjust the individual privacy settings for profile info, posts, friends list, and other profile sections as desired.
Setting this to “Friends” will prevent non-friends from seeing anything you post going forward.
Limit Old Posts Visibility
To limit visibility of previous posts, you’ll need to go through and adjust the audience on individual posts:
- Click on the 3 dots at the top right of a post and select “Edit audience.”
- Change the audience to “Friends” or customize it further.
- Repeat for other posts you want to limit.
This can be time consuming if you have a lot of old content to adjust. But it ensures non-friends can’t access those specific posts.
Clean Up Friends List
Another option is to go through your friends list and remove connections who you don’t want seeing your full profile. Here’s how:
- Go to your Friends page from the left menu.
- Hover over a friend’s name and click “Friends” from the menu that appears.
- Select “Unfriend” to remove them.
- Repeat for other unwanted connections.
This helps since Facebook friends typically have access to more profile content than non-friends. But it can be a lot of work if your friends list is very long.
Other Ways to Increase Facebook Privacy
In addition to hiding your profile from non-friends, here are some other tips to boost your Facebook privacy:
- Enable two-factor authentication for extra login security.
- Frequently check and adjust your privacy and app settings.
- Be selective about personal info you share publicly.
- Block users who are harassing you or making unwanted contact.
- Limit ad targeting and disable facial recognition.
- Avoid connecting with strangers or distant acquaintances.
The Pros and Cons of a Private Profile
There are some advantages and potential drawbacks to having a more private Facebook profile:
Pros:
- More control over sensitive personal information.
- Prevent unwanted commentary or interactions.
- Strengthen online safety and security.
- Separate professional and personal connections.
- Focus your news feed on close friends and family.
Cons:
- Miss out on some friend requests or interactions from wider acquaintances.
- Appear unfriendly or aloof to new connections.
- Unable to fully showcase yourself professionally or personally.
- Lose out on some Likes or engagement with a limited audience.
Overall, the privacy and security benefits tend to outweigh the cons for most Facebook users. But you may wish to find a balance between openness and privacy based on your specific needs.
Facebook Profile Visibility FAQs
Here are answers to some frequently asked questions about Facebook profile privacy settings:
Can someone see my Facebook profile if we have no friends in common?
No, if your profile is set to “Friends only” then someone with no mutual friends will not be able see anything other than your public profile picture and cover photo.
Does restricting past posts also restrict it from friends?
No, when you limit the audience on past posts your existing friends will still be able to see that content. The privacy settings only restrict people who are not connected to you as a friend.
Can I hide my friends list completely?
Yes, you can configure your privacy settings to hide your entire friends list from non-friends. Go to Settings & Privacy > Settings > Privacy and adjust the “Who can see your friends list” setting.
Can someone see when I was last active or online?
Friends can see when you were most recently active or online. To hide this from non-friends go to Settings & Privacy > Settings > Privacy and disable “Show when you were last active”.
Is it better to unfriend or block someone you want to hide from?
Generally it’s better to unfriend unwanted connections, as blocking is best reserved for harassment situations. Unfriending removes their access but allows you to re-add them later if needed.
Conclusion
Limiting your Facebook profile’s visibility is a smart way to protect your privacy online. Adjust your privacy settings to restrict access to friends only, review past posts, and clean up your connections. But balance privacy with your desire to connect and share as well.
With Facebook’s customizable privacy controls, you have options to hide as much or as little as you want while still enjoying the platform. So take the time to configure your profile and settings to your comfort level.