With over 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook has become one of the most popular social media platforms for connecting with friends, family, colleagues, brands, and more. However, with great connectivity comes less privacy. While Facebook does allow users to control some privacy settings, profiles by default are visible to the public.
Making your Facebook profile completely private restricts access so that non-friends cannot search for or view your profile. This prevents strangers from looking you up on Facebook and seeing any of your posts and info. Only people you are connected with as friends will have access.
Why Make Your Facebook Profile Private?
There are several reasons why someone may want to make their Facebook profile fully private:
- Prevent strangers from viewing your information – Privacy settings allow you to restrict access to posts, photos, personal info
- Avoid unwanted friend requests or messages from people you don’t know
- Stop advertisers from accessing your profile data for targeted ads
- Prevent potential employers from viewing your profile during a job search
- Stop exes, former friends, bullies from looking you up and viewing your activities
- Reduce risk of identity theft or stalking from strangers accessing your info
Making your profile private limits access only to people you know and trust as Facebook friends. It reduces risks associated with sharing information publicly online.
How to Make Your Facebook Profile Private
You can make your Facebook profile completely private by following these steps:
- Open Facebook and click on the down arrow in the top right corner. Select “Settings”.
- On the left column, click “Privacy”.
- Set the toggle for “Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile?” to OFF.
- Under “Who can see your future posts?” select “Friends” from the dropdown menu.
- For “Who can send you friend requests?” choose “Friends of Friends”.
- Under “Who can see your friends list” select “Only Me”.
- Change “Who can look you up using your phone number?” to “No One”.
- For additional security, set “Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your timeline?” to OFF.
Once you have made all of the above privacy adjustments, your profile will no longer show up in public Facebook searches. The general public will not be able to find or view your profile or any of your posts and information. The only people that will have access are your existing Facebook friends.
Review Your Profile Picture & Cover Photo Privacy
In addition to the main privacy settings, you will also want to double check that your Facebook profile and cover photos are not public:
- Go to your profile page
- Hover over your profile picture and click the pencil icon to Edit Picture
- Adjust the audience selector from “Public” to “Friends”
- Click “Save Changes”
- Hover over your cover photo and click on “Update Cover Photo”
- Set the audience selector from “Public” to “Friends”
- Click “Save Changes”
This ensures only your Facebook friends can see your profile and cover images. The general public will no longer have access.
Limiting Past Posts Visibility
Making your Facebook profile fully private limits access to newly published content. However, it does not automatically apply to posts made in the past when your profile was still public.
To limit visibility of previous posts, you must edit the audience of each post individually. This can be time consuming if you have years of old posts to comb through.
To edit post privacy settings:
- Click the 3 dots in the top right corner of a post.
- Select “Edit audience”.
- Change the audience selector from “Public” to “Friends”.
- Click “Confirm”.
Repeat this step for posts you want to completely hide from public view. Note this will only affect that specific post, not all past content.
Using Activity Log to Limit Past Posts
Manually adjusting individual posts can take a long time. A quicker option is to use Facebook’s Activity Log tool to view and limit the visibility of your previous posts and activity:
- Click the down arrow at the top right of Facebook.
- Select “Settings & Privacy”
- Click on “Activity log” in the left column.
- Adjust date range to view your post history.
- Click “More Options” next to any post.
- Select “Limit past audience” and change to “Friends”.
This lets you bulk edit the audience for your content. Any posts you restrict will now only be visible to your Facebook friends rather than the public.
Other Ways People Can Still See Your Profile
Restricting your profile visibility goes a long way in improving privacy. However, there are still certain ways people may still access your profile and posts even if set fully to private:
- Friends of Friends – Friends of friends may still be able see limited profile info and search for you on Facebook.
- Linked Accounts – If you link Instagram, Spotify, or other services, some info may still be visible.
- Public Pages – Profile pictures and names of admins of public pages are still public.
- Facebook Groups – Your name, profile photo, and any posts within public groups would still be accessible.
- Messenger – You can still be found and contacted by anyone using Facebook Messenger.
While these do not expose too many personal details, it is information people may still see about you even with a private profile. If you want to lock down access further, here are some additional tips:
- Leave any public Facebook Groups you have joined.
- Remove Admin status for any public Pages you manage.
- Unlink connected accounts like Instagram from Facebook.
- Adjust Messenger settings to limit who can contact you.
Conclusion
Making your Facebook profile completely private restricts access so only confirmed friends can search for and view your profile. It is the best way to gain control over privacy and limit unwanted attention on Facebook.
By adjusting your profile, search, and audience settings, you can successfully hide yourself from public view. Just be aware that friends of friends, linked accounts, Messenger contacts, and public groups may still have access to some limited details.
With over 2 billion users, Facebook can feel more public than private. But granular privacy controls empower you to decide exactly who sees what. So stay social in the way that makes you most comfortable by making your Facebook profile fully private.