Facebook allows you to customize the privacy settings for your stories, controlling who can view them. While this can be useful, you may want to remove the custom settings and revert back to the default options. Here are the steps to remove custom privacy settings from Facebook stories and make them visible to your default audience again.
What are custom privacy settings for Facebook stories?
By default, Facebook stories are visible to all of your friends on the platform. However, Facebook gives you the option to customize who can see your stories using the following options:
- Hide story from…
- Show story to…
- More options…
Using these, you can limit story visibility to a subset of friends, exclude specific people, or share it publicly. Once custom settings are in place, they will apply to all subsequent stories until changed.
Why remove custom privacy settings?
There are a few reasons you may want to remove custom privacy settings from your Facebook stories:
- You want your stories to be visible to all friends again by default.
- The custom settings are too complicated or difficult to manage.
- You no longer wish to exclude some friends from seeing stories.
- You don’t want certain people to know you had excluded them.
- You forgot what custom settings you had in place.
Reverting to the default settings makes your stories visible to all friends with no exclusions. It simplifies the process and means you don’t have to think about customizing visibility every time.
How to remove custom privacy settings from Facebook stories
Removing custom privacy settings from Facebook stories only takes a few simple steps:
- Go to your Facebook profile and click on the top right icon showing your initials, profile pic, or a silhouette.
- From the drop-down menu, choose ‘Settings & Privacy’.
- Go to the ‘Privacy’ section and select ‘Story’.
- Here you will see options for customizing story privacy as well as any current custom settings in place.
- To remove, click on the 3 dots beside ‘Hide Story From…’ or ‘Show Story To…’ and select ‘Remove’.
- Confirm that you want to remove any custom settings.
This will revert your story privacy back to the default visibility of all friends. Your next story will return to normal without any exclusions.
Things to know about default story privacy
When you remove custom settings, your stories will be visible to all friends by default. Here are some things to keep in mind:
- New friends you add will also be able to view your stories.
- Friends you removed from the audience won’t know you excluded them.
- Unlike close friends lists which are reciprocal, your friends do not have to add you back to see stories.
- You can still hide stories from specific people using the privacy dropdown when posting.
- Friends you have unfollowed can still see your stories.
The key benefit is simplifying management. Rather than maintaining complex visibility rules, all friends have access by default.
How to customize Facebook story privacy again
If you change your mind later, you can re-customize the privacy settings for your Facebook stories:
- Go back to your story privacy settings.
- Click ‘Customize Audience’ or the plus icon.
- Choose options to hide from or show stories to specific friends.
- Click ‘Done’ to apply changes.
This will let you re-establish custom settings and control visibility. Just remember to manage these going forward as they apply to all future stories.
Troubleshooting tips
Here are some troubleshooting tips if you are unable to remove custom privacy settings from your Facebook stories:
- Make sure you are using the latest version of the Facebook app.
- Check that your app has proper permissions enabled.
- Try logging out and back into your Facebook account.
- Update your Facebook app if an update is available.
- Clear your Facebook app cache and data history.
- Restart your mobile device or computer.
If issues persist, you can try reaching out to Facebook support for additional help removing custom story privacy settings.
Conclusion
Controlling privacy is important, but custom story settings can become complex to manage. If you want to return visibility to all friends for simplicity, removing custom privacy is straightforward:
- Go to your Facebook privacy settings.
- Navigate to the story privacy section.
- Delete any custom ‘Hide Story From’ or ‘Show Story To’ configurations.
- Confirm that you want to remove.
This will revert back to the default option of making stories visible to all friends. Just be aware that new friends will also have access until you customize again. Simplify your Facebook stories by removing custom privacy settings.