how to make facebook reviews private

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How to Make Facebook Private: Step-by-Step Guide

Quickly adjust your Facebook privacy settings

Last Updated: October 6, 2023 Fact Checked

Make Your Posts Private (Mobile)

Make your profile private (mobile), make your posts private (desktop), make your profile private (desktop), expert q&a.

This article was co-authored by wikiHow staff writer, Nicole Levine, MFA . Nicole Levine is a Technology Writer and Editor for wikiHow. She has more than 20 years of experience creating technical documentation and leading support teams at major web hosting and software companies. Nicole also holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Portland State University and teaches composition, fiction-writing, and zine-making at various institutions. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 242,507 times. Learn more...

Are you trying to change the privacy settings for your Facebook account and posts? You can easily do so from the Facebook website or mobile app. There are a variety of options for limiting who can see your posts and who can message you through Facebook Messenger. This wikiHow guide shows you how to change your Facebook settings to make your account as private as possible.

Things You Should Know

• On mobile, go to Menu > Settings & privacy > Settings. You'll find privacy options for your posts and content under "Audience and visibility."
• In the mobile app, you can make the personal information on your profile in Menu > Settings & privacy > Settings > Profile details.
• On desktop, click your profile photo and go to Settings & privacy > Settings > Privacy to make your posts and profile private.

• Who can see your future posts? To make sure you're only sharing with people you know, choose Friends , Specific Friends (to select which friends can view each type of content), Friends except (to choose certain friends who shouldn't be able to see your content), or Only me .
• Limit who can see your past posts: If your existing Facebook posts are public or visible to friends of friends, you can quickly make them all Friends Only here.
• By default, much of the information on your profile, including your contact information, work and education experience, birthday, and relationship status, is public. Your Facebook profile may also show up in search engines like Google. This method will help you make your profile private and more difficult for strangers to find.

• Tap the pencil icon (or Edit ) next to a section you want to make private, then select Friends (to make it visible to your friends only) or Only me (to make it completely private).
• If you've created custom friend lists on Facebook, such as Close Friends, you can select one of those lists instead.
• When you're finished, tap the back button until you've returned to Settings & Privacy.

• Tap Profile and tagging on the Settings & Privacy page.
• By default, only your friends can post comments, photos, videos, and links to your profile. If you don't want your friends to post on your Facebook profile, select Only me .
• Tap Who can see what others post on your profile? to make other people's posts on your Facebook timeline visible to Friends , Specific friends , Friends except… , or Only me .
• In the "Tagging" section, you can control who can see posts and photos you're tagged in. Set both options to Friends or Only Me .
• If you want to be able to see and approve the posts and tags from others before they show up on your profile, tap both options under "Review," then select On for each.
• When you're finished, tap the back button to return to Settings & Privacy.

• By default, anyone on Facebook can request to add you as a friend . If you're getting too many friend requests, select Friends of Friends instead.
• If somebody has your phone number or email address, they can use it to find you on Facebook . If you find that unsettling, choose Friends , Friends of Friends , or Only me for these options.
• Anyone who looks at your Facebook profile can see your friends list. To make it more private, choose Friends or Only me .
• If somebody searches Google for your name, they may come across your Facebook profile. To remove your profile from search engines, select No for the last option.

• Who can see your future posts: Click Edit to make your future Facebook posts visible to Friends , Specific Friends (to select which friends can view each type of content), Friends except (to choose certain friends who shouldn't be able to see your content), or Only me .
• To quickly make all your existing posts friends-only, click Limit Past Posts .
• Click Edit next to "Who can see the people, Pages, and lists you follow?" and select Only me to hide this information from your profile.

• Who can send you friend requests? This changes who can add you as a friend on Facebook. Limiting this is great if you prefer to find people on Facebook yourself .
• Who can see your friends list? This allows you to hide your friends list from certain audiences or from everyone.
• The two Who can look you up? options control whether people can search for you on Facebook using your email address or phone number. Change these to Only me or Friends for privacy.
• Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile? For this option, you can select No to prevent search engines from showing your Facebook profile.

• By default, only your friends can post photos, videos, links, and other content on your profile. If you don't want your friends to post on your Facebook profile, select Only me .
• Click the menu next to "Who can see what others post on your profile?" to make other people's posts on your Facebook timeline visible to Friends , Specific friends , Friends except… , or Only me .
• Click the menu next to "Who can see what others post on your profile?" to limit who can see what your friends have shared.
• If you want to be able to see and approve posts and tags from others before they show up on your profile, toggle on both switches under "Review."

• If you're receiving Facebook messages from people you don't want to hear from, you can control who can send you messages . Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• If you're considering leaving Facebook altogether, check out our guide on deleting your Facebook account permanently. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• If you don't want people to know when you're active on Facebook, you can appear offline to certain people. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

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How To Disable Reviews on a Facebook Page

Jamie Read more February 16, 2022

Any company in 2021 is subject to online reviews that can either make or break their business. Being troubled with trolls or a campaign trying to discredit your business online? This tutorial will show you how to disable reviews on Facebook and how to handle negative feedback so you still come out on top regardless of what is said.

Reviews, or social proof, as they are otherwise known are incredibly powerful. Few people buy anything online without checking reviews first and seeing negative reviews, even one bad review with 99 positive ones is enough to put some purchasers off.

If you run a business, Facebook is an essential part of your marketing mix. With billions of users, multiple ways to interact with customers, a two-way conversation with your fans, and lots of methods you can use for engagement, why would not you use it?

There are obvious downsides though. The same trolls and jerks that make Facebook difficult to use as a private citizen can also be the same with businesses. Facebook is also used to discredit some businesses on purpose by review bombing and through coordinated campaigns of social media marketing.

Search for ‘buy negative Facebook reviews’ online and see the dozens of companies offering to sell negative reviews. For not a lot of money, you can buy negative reviews to supposedly counter the raft of positive reviews to make your profile more realistic. In reality, those services are used to discredit competitors. Nobody thinks for a second that any business would ever purposely add negative feedback to their own account.

How to Disable Reviews on Facebook

It is possible to disable reviews or to report and remove fake ones. Most would suggest removing fake ones and leaving reviews enabled. If you are continually targeted by fakes, disabling them altogether may be the only way.

To disable feedback:

When you’ve completed these steps, viewers of your Facebook page will no longer see any reviews.

This is the nuclear option as reviews are important to buying decisions but if you have no choice, that’s how you disable them.

Report a Fake Review on Facebook

If you only suffer a few fake reviews, you would be much better off tackling them instead of turning off feedback. Here’s how:

• Open Facebook and navigate to your Facebook page.

If you have ever dealt with Facebook before, you won’t have much hope that anything will happen. However, you have to follow the process and let the company do anything or nothing before taking it further.

Handling Negative or Fake Reviews

The measure of a business is not how it handles day-to-day operations but how it handles itself when things go wrong. Your first instinct might be anger, despair, and a desire for revenge but none of those things will work on Facebook.

Handling Real Negative Facebook Reviews

The key to handling negative reviews is to do it calmly and professionally. Replying with a rant is not going to win you any new customers or increased loyalty. However, if you address the problem at hand, offer to work with the customer to ensure their satisfaction, and act professionally and appropriately, the negative review can actually be made to work for you instead of against you.

It is good for customers to see how a company handles criticism. If you do it professionally and rise above any vitriol spilled in a review, you come out on top. Offer to work with the customer to make sure they are happy, you reassure all customers that even if things go wrong, you’ve got their back. That is worth many positive reviews.

However, the company is taking steps to keep these fake review accounts from doing any damage to innocent businesses. Just recently, the company removed over 16,000 accounts for this type of behavior.

Handling Fake Facebook Reviews

Handling fake reviews is slightly different but can also be turned on its head. Being honest and upfront with your customers about what is happening and asking them to leave positive reviews to counter the fakes can work.

It isn’t guaranteed to work though. Not all businesses have that kind of customer loyalty and not everyone will want to leave a review. Placing a reply to each fake marking it as such can go a long way to managing the situation.

Fake reviews are something of a plague on Facebook and other review sites. As many companies are spending resources on combating hate speech, fake news, and higher-profile issues, fewer resources are placed with other customer service areas.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can i delete a review.

Unfortunately, there’s no ‘delete’ button on a Facebook review. Your only option is to report a review or to respond back to it politely and professionally.

If I disable reviews will the existing reviews disappear?

Yes, until you turn them back on again. If someone really has it out for your business it may be a good idea to disable reviews and allow customers to post their true testimony about your company on your wall.

How can I get more reviews?

Good reviews are great advertising. If you do have one or two bad ones, getting more good ones can bring your score up. To get more reviews you can ask your patrons to leave a review. Some companies will even offer a discount for such a return of gratitude.

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Mastering facebook reviews: the complete 2024 guide.

Activate the Facebook Reviews tab on your Facebook business Page and grow with customer feedback.

Facebook reviews, or recommendations, are a vital part of a business’s online reputation.

After all, they provide the best type of social proof you can get, increase the visibility of your business, and help you convert visitors into dedicated customers.

Moreover, the impact customer reviews have on your business cannot be underestimated. The vast majority of U.S. adults (82%) say they check online reviews before a purchase. Also, over 18% of U.S. adults say they had bought something through Facebook.

So keep on reading as we tell you all about Facebook reviews, how to add them to your page, and how they help your business succeed in today’s day and age.

About Facebook recommendations former Facebook reviews

Facebook Recommendations are a feature on Facebook that allows users to provide feedback about their experiences with businesses, services, or products.

Unlike traditional star-rated reviews, Recommendations enable users to simply recommend or not recommend a business to their friends and network. These Recommendations can include written feedback, photos, and tags, creating a more comprehensive and social form of review. This feature integrates directly into a business’s Facebook Page, making it easier for potential customers to see authentic opinions and experiences shared by real users.

Note: Facebook’s ‘Recommendations’ feature is the evolution of the older ‘Reviews’ system, and you can still find it under the ‘Reviews’ tab of Facebook pages. However, instead of using the old star rating system, buyers recommend (or not) a product or a business, share a written opinion, and leave tags and images (should they choose to).

FYI: You can embed Facebook reviews widget  automatically with  EmbedReviews platform.  Start a free trial  and display your Facebook Page recommnedations now. 

Embed Facebook Recommendations and Reviews on your Website

Try EmbedReviews , generate Facebook and Google reviews, and display a social media reviews widget on your website. Automatically and in seconds.

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How to set up your Facebook business page reviews?

You can very quickly and very easily add your Facebook Reviews tab on your official page. Just complete these straightforward steps:

• Log in to your account and go to your business Facebook page ;
• Click on your profile image (top-right corner and tap ‘Settings & privacy’ ;

That’s it! Now, your ‘Reviews’ tab will be live on your official page, and your customers can share their experiences with your business for everyone to see.

Note: Once you activate the ‘Reviews’ tab and start getting feedback, you won’t be able to delete Facebook reviews yourself. You will have to flag innacurate reviews and Facebook’s team will deal with them if they violate Facebook’s Community Standards.

How to get your Facebook Reviews page link?

Google My Business has made getting a  Google review link  easy, but getting a Facebook review link will be a bit different. No worries, we’ll show you two easy ways to do it!

Option 1: Copy the reviews page URL

To get your Facebook Reviews link, you have to follow two simple steps:

• Log in to your Facebook page —start by logging into your Facebook account and navigating to your official business page;
• Add ‘/review’ to your page URL —find the browser address bar, click at the end of it, and then simply type ‘/review’ after your page URL;
• Copy the URL to share it —simply copy the entire string you see in the address bar for future use. For instance, https://www.facebook.com/embedreviews/reviews is EmbedSocial’s Facebook Reviews page link – as shown below:

Congratulations, you have it!

Now, share the Reviews link of your Facebook business page across the internet, such as on your website, in emails, in your newsletters, or on your social media platforms, i.e., anywhere you see a chance to invite your customers to review you.

Note: When sending the link, also add a brief explanation on  how your customers can leave you a Facebook review for your product and services.

Option 2: Build your own direct Facebook review link

What if your customers are not logged into their personal or business accounts? If you send them the above link, they’ll be asked to log into Facebook first, which may discourage them from reviewing your business. No worries, here’s a solution to that:

• Utilize the Facebook login URL ->  www.facebook.com/login/
• Put a redirect to your reviews page by adding “next” ->  www.facebook.com/login/?next=
• Convert your page URL into the corresponding equivalent in HTML and add it after the “next” component ->  https://www.facebook.com/login/?next=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fembedreviews%2Freviews%2F

As you can see, it’s not complicated at all! Just replace the colon (:) with %3A and the slash (/) with %2F. That way, whenever the customer logs in to their account, they’ll be redirected to your reviews page. Works like a charm every time!

How can your customers leave you Facebook reviews?

Since the introduction of the ‘Recommendations’ review system, your clients will no longer have to select a number of stars to describe your products and/or services. They only have to navigate to your page’s ‘Reviews’ tab or follow the above ‘Reviews’ link.

Once there, they only have to tap ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ under the ‘Do you recommend [your business name]’ message. Then, the ‘Recommendation’ box will open and prompt users to share their thoughts about your business. They’ll have to write at least 25 characters.

As users leave you new reviews, they will start appearing at the top of the ‘Reviews’ tab feed of your Facebook business page.

How to respond to your Facebook reviews?

You must respond to all (or most of) your Facebook reviews, both positive and negative. That’s the best way to maintain a strong online presence and build trust with your customers.

To respond to Facebook reviews, you will typically get a notification on Facebook or via email , and when you click on it, it will take you directly to that review, so you can check out the review, and provide your reply—it’s as easy as writing a comment on a Facebook post.

Here are some practical  review reply templates  for review responses:

Positive reviews response example:

Hello [Reviewer’s Name], Thank you so much for your kind review! We’re thrilled to hear that you had a great customer experience with our [product/service]. Our team works hard to provide excellent customer service, and we’re glad to see that it’s making a difference. We appreciate your support and would love for you to share your experience with your friends and family. If you have any other feedback or suggestions, please don’t hesitate to reach out. We look forward to serving you again soon! Warm regards, [Your Name] [Business Name]

Negative reviews response example

Hello [Reviewer’s Name], We apologize for the less than satisfactory experience you had with our [product/service]. It’s essential for us to maintain high standards, and we’re sorry that we did not meet your expectations this time. We’d like to learn more about your experience and find a way to make things right. Please reach out to us at [contact information] or send us a private message so we can discuss this further and find a suitable resolution. Again, we apologize for any inconvenience caused, and we appreciate your feedback as it helps us improve and provide better service in the future. Sincerely, [Your Name] [Business Name]

How to report a Facebook review?

Sometimes you may receive fake negative reviews that affect your online reputation. Naturally, you have to deal with negative reviews as soon as possible. But, since you cannot outright delete them, you’ll have to report them for violating Facebook’s Community Standards :

• Find the negative review in your ‘Reviews’ tab ;

• Choose to receive notifications about the report and click ‘Submit’ ;

Here’s a brief video covering the entire process:

How to get new reviews for your Facebook business pages?

The fun part starts here: finding cool new ways to motivate your customers to leave you positive Facebook recommendations.

These are some of the strategies you can try out include:

• Adding a physical ‘Review’ sign at your place of business— you can edit and place the official ‘ Facebook Review Us ‘ stickers anywhere from your counter to your tables, walls, shopping windows, or any other prominent sections of your premises;
• Use the Facebook Wi-Fi feature— set up Facebook Wi-Fi in your business location to get more customer reviews, which will allow your visitors to hook up to your guest Wi-Fi for free once they check in to your Facebook business page and leave you a review;
• Embed a digital ‘Review us on Facebook’ button— you can place this button anywhere from your homepage to your blog and social media sites;
• Create a Facebook contest —you can always stage a discount contest for your customers, who will be able to participate if they leave you a Facebook review;
• Asking your regular customers— you can always ask for a review outright, especially your regular visitors, which will be included to help you out. You can either ask them in person or send them an email such as this one, along with the promise of a discount:

“Thanks for stopping by again [customer name]”.  “Do you use Facebook? The reason I ask is that we have a Facebook Reviews section that we use to collect our customer’s comments. Would you be interested in posting one?”   Here is our link (link to Facebook reviews section) Thank you so much. [Your Name] [Your Company Name]

Need more strategies for getting Facebook reviews?

Check the detailed blog post covering 5 ways to get Facebook reviews for your business, or download the Facebook reviews guide:

How to display your Facebook reviews on your website?

One of the best ways to collect more reviews is to promote your existing recommendations across your website and add the relevant CTA buttons for review collection. Additionally, the ability to embed Facebook reviews on your website boosts trust and provides real-time evidence of the experiences shared by your real customers.

The Facebook reviews widget has a direct API integration with Facebook, and with just one click enables users to aggregate all their Facebook page reviews and display on their website with an embeddable code:

Here is an example:

The best part? The widget allows you to combine reviews from all popular social media platforms and review sources like Facebook, Yelp, and Google , into one stunning widget. Moreover, you can import third-party reviews and craft custom testimonials.

Check below the various widget layouts, including sliders, grids, and rating badges and pick one to signup and create yours.

Facebook Reviews Feed

Embed Facebook reviews in a slider.

Facebook Reviews Table

Show reviews in a full-page feed.

Facebook Reviews Popup

Display Facebook reviews in a popover widget.

Facebook Reviews Slider

Show Facebook reviews in a modern slider.

Want more cool stuff? Explore early products

Step-by-step guide on collecting Facebook reviews . Related article

In case you are using a web builder to build your website, the code works with the most popular CMS and website builders, so click on your specific website builder to proceed:

• Facebook Reviews for WordPress
• Facebook Reviews for Squarespace
• Facebook Reviews for PageCloud
• Facebook Reviews for Weebly
• Facebook Reviews for Wix
• Facebook Reviews for Shopify
• Facebook Reviews for Webflow

What are the benefits of Facebook reviews?

Every serious business must collect Facebook reviews/recommendations nowadays as they come with several advantages, including but not limited to the following:

1. They increase your organic reach

Positive reviews and recommendations can help your business gain more visibility on Facebook, as they may appear in the Facebook Feeds of the reviewer’s friends or when someone asks for recommendations. This increased exposure can attract more potential customers.

How? When a customer recommends your bakery on Facebook, their friends might see the recommendation in their Feed, thus sparking interest in your products and driving more foot traffic to your bakery.

2. They boost your brand credibility

A collection of positive reviews and recommendations serves as  social proof , demonstrating that your business is reliable, trustworthy, and offers great experiences, which can influence potential customers to choose your products or services over your competitors.

How? A new user visiting your digital marketing agency’s Facebook page sees numerous glowing reviews from satisfied clients. This positive feedback instills confidence in the user, making them more likely to engage with your agency.

3. They improve your search engine ranking

Positive reviews can improve your search engine ranking, as search engines also consider  user-generated content about a certain business in their ranking algorithms.

How? Your restaurant has numerous positive reviews on Facebook. When someone searches for restaurants in your area, your restaurant is more likely to appear higher in the search results due to the positive feedback.

4. They help you gain your visitors’ trust

When potential customers see a high volume of positive reviews, they are more likely to trust your business and feel confident in their decision to engage with your products or services.

How? A potential client is considering hiring your home cleaning service. Upon seeing the numerous positive reviews on your Facebook page, they feel reassured that your service is reliable and trustworthy, making them more likely to hire you.

Hopefully, our guide on Facebook business reviews gives you specific directions on improving your  online reputation management  and leveling up your digital marketing strategy.

Remember, getting more reviews on Facebook (and other social media sites) can take a little effort, but it’s an investment that pays off in the long run. We promise!

FAQs about Facebook reviews

Yes, Facebook reviews still exist, but they have evolved into a new format called ‘ Facebook Recommendations ‘, which no longer uses the previous star-based system. Users now recommend (or not) a certain business or product and leave a text-based review. They also have the option to add various tags and relevant images. This new format allows for more context and encourages users to provide more valuable feedback for potential customers.

To see the reviews of your or other businesses, you will have to navigate to the official page and click on the ‘Reviews’ tab underneath the profile image. If the tab is not there, the ‘Reviews’ feature has to be activated through the page’s ‘Privacy’ section.

No, Facebook reviews are not private. When a user leaves a review on a business Page, it is publicly visible to anyone visiting said Page. This allows potential customers to read about the experiences of others, which can influence their decision to engage with the business.

As a business owner, you cannot directly delete Facebook Reviews left by users. However, you can report a review if it violates Facebook’s Community Standards or contains spam. Then, if Facebook determines the review is inappropriate, they may remove it. Alternatively, you can disable the ‘Reviews’ tab on your business Page, which will hide all reviews from your Page, but this will make it harder for potential customers to learn more about your business.

While you cannot directly remove a bad review on Facebook, you can take steps to address it. First, respond to the review professionally and empathetically, offering to address the issue and rectify the situation. If that doesn’t work and you believe the review is from a fake account, spam, or violates Facebook’s Community Standards, you can report it to Facebook for review.

• Pew Research Center report
• 2020 eMarketer report

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Co-Founder of EmbedSocial and Head of Growth. A previous owner of a Facebook Partner Company and a digital marketing agency. Marketing API geek and a Call of Duty fan.

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How to Make Facebook Private

You can make your posts, Friends list, profile information, and albums private

• University of Virginia

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In This Article

Jump to a Section

• Change the Sharing Default
• Make Friends List Private
• Review Profile Settings
• Use the Audience Selector
• Change Photo Album Settings
• Frequently Asked Questions

What to Know

• Go to Settings & Privacy > Settings > Privacy > Who Can See Your Posts and change Public to another option.
• To make your Friends list private, go to Privacy > Who can see your friends list and select Friends or Only Me .
• To make your profile private, go to your profile and select Edit Details . Toggle off the info you want to keep private.

This article explains how to change your Facebook privacy settings to make your posts, Friends list, profile information, and albums private. Instructions are specific to Facebook on the desktop.

How to Change the Sharing Default Using Privacy Settings and Tools

One quick way to lock down everything you post moving forward is to set your default sharing option to Friends and not Public. When you make this change, only your friends see your posts.

To get to the Facebook Privacy Settings and Tools screen:

Select the arrow in the upper-right corner of any Facebook screen.

Select Settings & Privacy in the drop-down menu.

Choose Settings .

Select Privacy in the left pane.

The first item listed is Who can see your future posts . If it says Public , select Edit and choose Friends from the drop-down menu.

Select Close to save the change.

You can also change the audience for previous posts on this screen. Look for an area labeled Limit the audience for posts you've shared with friends of friends or Public . Select Limit Past Posts , then select Limit Past Posts again.

This setting changes your previous posts that were marked Friends of Friends or Public to Friends. You can override the default privacy setting on individual posts whenever you want. 

How to Make Your Facebook Friends List Private

Facebook makes your friends list public by default, which means everyone can see it, whether they're your friend or not. You can change your preferences from the Facebook settings or on your profile page.

On the Settings and Privacy screen, select Edit next to Who can see your friends list .

Select either Friends or Only me to keep your friends list private.

You can also customize who can see your friends list by choosing Specific Friends or Friends Except . Specific Friends only includes people you designate, and Friends Except excludes specific people on your list.

Alternatively, go to your Facebook profile page. Go to the Friends tab under your cover photo.

Select your name from any page on Facebook to get to your profile page.

Select the three-dot menu in the upper-right corner of the Friends screen and choose Edit Privacy .

Select an audience next to Friends List and Following .

Select the X icon to save the changes and close the window.

How to Review Your Profile Privacy Settings

Your Facebook profile is public by default, which means it is indexed by Google and other search engines and viewable by anyone.

Privacy experts recommend you review the settings for each item in your Facebook profile .

Select your name at the top of any Facebook screen to go to your profile.

Select Edit Details in the left pane of your profile page. The Customize Your Intro box opens.

Turn off the toggle next to the information you want to remain private. This includes boxes next to education, your current city, your hometown, and other personal information you added to Facebook. 

To edit an item instead, select the pencil icon.

How to Make Your Profile Invisible to Search Engines

You can block your profile from showing up in search engines. Here's what to do.

Next to Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile , select Edit and   clear the check box that allows search engines to see you on Facebook.

How to Use Facebook's Inline Audience Selector

Facebook provides audience selectors to let you set different sharing options for each piece of content you post to the social network.

When you open a status screen to make a post, you see the privacy setting you chose to serve as the default at the bottom of the screen. Occasionally, you might want to change this.

Select the button with the privacy setting in the status box and select an audience for a specific post. Options include Public , Friends , and Only Me , along with Friends except , and Specific friends .

With the new audience selected, write your post and select Post to send it to the chosen audience.

Change Privacy Settings on Photo Albums

When you upload photos, you can change your Facebook photo privacy settings by album or by individual image.

To edit the privacy setting for an album of photos:

Go to your profile and select Photos .

Select the More menu next to the album you want to change and choose Edit album .

Use the audience selector to set the privacy setting for the album.

Some albums have audience selectors on each photo, which allows you to select a specific audience for each photo.

To hide likes on Facebook , go to your profile and select More > Likes . Select the three-dot menu and select Edit the Privacy of Your Likes .

To hide your online status on Facebook , go to Messenger > Settings and turn off Show when you're active . To block someone so that they can't see you at all, go to Settings & Privacy > Settings > Blocking .

To view what your Facebook profile looks like to the public , go to your profile, select the three dots under your cover photo, and select View As . Select Exit View As to go back.

To send a private message on Facebook , go to a profile and select Message , or select the New Message icon (the speech bubble) at the top of the site. On a mobile device, use the Messenger app.

To control who can comment on your Facebook posts , go to Settings & privacy > Settings > Public Posts > Public Post Comments > Edit > Choose who can comment . To hide your comments on other people's posts from the public, hover your mouse over the comment, select the three dots , then choose Hide .

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How to make your profile private on Facebook

Looking to boost your Facebook profile’s privacy settings? Here is the simplest way to make your Facebook profile private.

It’s important to make sure that you are comfortable on social media, and sometimes that comfort can come from knowing that people you don’t know aren’t looking at your profile.

And that can go a step further, you may want a Facebook account just so you can check in with funny pages and see what your local news looks like, and you may prefer it if no one could access your profile.

And it’s surprisingly easy to make your Facebook account private, it only takes a few simple steps. Keep reading to find out the easiest way to make your Facebook profile private.

What we used

• We used a Dell XPS 13 OLED (2021) running Windows 11 and Facebook

The Short Version

Open facebook, click on the menu button, press settings and privacy, click settings, click privacy, press the edit button, click the box, choose more, click only me.

Troubleshooting

Our guide shows you how to make your activity private, however, you can use this method to get to your Privacy settings and then make everything on your profile private, including who can see your page, who can see your friends list and many more. You can make as many options as possible private if you want to.

The number of people that will be able to interact or even see your Facebook account will depend on how many settings you set to ‘Only me’. If you remove yourself from the search engine it will make it harder for people to find your Facebook account.

You might like…

How to change a page name on Facebook

How to change your primary email address on Facebook

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How to turn off active status on Facebook

How to make a post in bold text on Facebook

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Gemma joined Trusted Reviews as a staff writer after graduating from Leeds Beckett University with a Journalism degree. She's worked with national outlets, covering breaking news stories to reviews fo…

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How to Make Your Facebook Profile Private in 2024

Facebook is harmful to your digital privacy, unfortunately as it may seem. However, you can set up your account to minimize the damage. This article explains what to do.

Social media and privacy are two things that do not go hand in hand, especially on Facebook. Nevertheless, many users can’t afford to get rid of their Facebook account for various reasons. Social media accounts are necessary in our times, even if they harm privacy. However, you can set up your Facebook account so that the damage to your privacy is as low as possible .

If your digital privacy is a big priority for you, then there’s only one way to go: Delete every social media account you have right now and never think about them again.

We know. That’s radical. Such a measure serves privacy, but social media isn’t optional in our day and age. There has to be a way to retain your ability to be on social media and have an acceptable measure of privacy and safety, especially on Facebook, the most important social media platform.

And you can make your Facebook account more private if you manage your security settings correctly . This guide will show you how to do that.

Facebook’s settings panel is not easy to navigate . It has a plethora of options, so being a bit confused when looking at them is normal. To make things worse, Facebook changes them all the time, so the last time you dealt with these settings correctly doesn’t provide you with the experience to do it again. But don’t worry. We are here to help you.

Maximizing your Facebook privacy settings

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How-To Geek

How to make your facebook account more private.

Facebook is a privacy minefield but there are a few things you can do.

Quick Links

Consider what (and how) you share, review your friends list, you don't have to use your "real" name, perform a privacy checkup, don't forget about ads, lock or deactivate your profile, finally: disable active status on messenger.

Facebook has a shaky reputation when it comes to privacy, but it's a useful tool for keeping in touch with friends and family. If you're going to use the social network, there are a few things you can do to lock things down as much as possible.

Facebook can operate both as a public social network where everything is viewable to everyone, and a private friends-only space where you restrict your posts and information to only those people you choose to connect with. You can even mix and match these approaches, depending on what you're posting.

The easiest way to do this is with Facebook's inline audience selector . Whenever you decide to make a new post, you can click or tap on the drop-down box beneath your name and choose between Friends or Public, or restrict certain users. You can even limit it to "Only me" which is perfect for hiding old posts without having to delete them entirely.

Doing this allows you to hide certain posts from specified contacts, or even share posts only with a select few. Head to your Facebook Privacy settings under Settings > Privacy  to choose a default setting for this box, which will save you from accidentally posting something public in the future.

The best way of not compromising your privacy, though, is by not posting something you may later regret, regardless of the audience. You can also retroactively limit the audience of your old Facebook posts that you've already made.

You know how to restrict posts to only your friends, but how well do you know your friends? Facebook contacts can come from anywhere, whether that's close friends that you know in real life, distant relatives you've met a few times, or online contacts who you've never seen in the flesh.

It's a good idea to comb through your Facebook friends list from time to time to ensure you're comfortable with your audience. You can put people on your Restricted list using the "Friends" icon on a profile and selecting "Edit friend list" and choosing "Restricted" (or any other list you like).

A friend on your Restricted list can only see your public profile information plus any posts you tag them in. This can be a good way to keep people at arm's length without having to remove them from your friend list, avoiding potentially awkward real-world interactions.

Using your real name on Facebook might seem like a good idea, assuming you want to be found and recognized. Facebook's infamous real name policy has stirred up controversy and caused issues in the past, leading to the social network softening its approach somewhat (at least on paper).

Facebook's name policy states that "the name on your profile should be the name that your friends call you in everyday life" and that it should "also appear on a form of ID or document from our ID list." In addition to the usual forms of ID like a passport or driver's license, Facebook also accepts library cards, store loyalty cards, and employment verification on its list of approved IDs .

Related: How to Change Your Name on Facebook

According to Facebook, "nicknames can be used as a first or middle name if they're a variation of your authentic name." This should provide some wiggle room to get creative with naming your account . Provided your pseudonym can pass as a nickname for your real name, you should be in the clear if you get pulled up on it.

Think for a second about how many Facebook friends you have who don't use their real names. How many are using completely fictionalized personas? How many have stretched the nickname rule almost to breaking point? From the outside looking in, it doesn't look like this rule is one that Facebook is hugely concerned about policing.

Facebook has a useful Privacy Checkup tool  that walks you through some of the most common privacy settings you might want to change. This includes your password, how people can find you, and how your data is managed. From time to time, new settings may be added or you might change your mind on some policies so checking back semi-regularly to update these settings is recommended.

We have also outlined some  Facebook privacy settings you'll probably want to change  which can have an immediate effect on locking your profile down. You can also trawl through your Facebook Settings  to update individual preferences, including more obscure preferences like who can comment on your public posts, and whether tags need to be reviewed by you before they appear on your profile.

Take a moment to comb through your profile to see what information you may want to hide. You can click on the audience icon next to a piece of information (it will look like a globe if it's public, for example) and choose an audience you're more comfortable with. Check each section, then use the "View as" button near your name to see your profile from another point of view.

Facebook advertising is famously intrusive. The social network learns all it can about you and then attempts to show you adverts that you're more likely to click on. This advertising is part and parcel of using the Facebook service, though you can choose to see fewer ads about certain topics, including alcohol, parenting, pets, and social or political topics under Ad Topics in Settings > Ad Preferences.

Another thing you can control is how Facebook uses tracking cookies to target you with even more relevant advertising. Under "Data about your activity from partners" you can turn off Facebook and Instagram. This prevents the social network from using data gleaned from websites, adverts, and offline interactions to serve you adverts. It's not going to result in fewer adverts, but from a privacy standpoint, it's less invasive.

You can make ads even less intrusive by disabling certain "categories used to reach you" including your employer, job title, education, and relationship status. There's also a humorous "interest categories" listing  things that Facebook thinks you are interested in . You can delete anything you want from this section, but keep in mind that you're "training" the advertising algorithm by doing this.

Related: How to See What Data Facebook Has on You

Facebook announced a profile lock feature that effectively limits everything to friends until you deactivate the setting. This includes all of your posts, your profile picture, and Facebook Stories. The setting isn't available worldwide at the time of writing, but you can enable a lock when it's available on your account from your profile page.

If you'd rather just take a break from Facebook and put a pin in your account, you can deactivate your profile under the Your Facebook information  section of your Facebook Settings. This is a temporary decision that removes your name and content across Facebook, though Facebook Messenger won't be affected unless you deactivate Messenger separately .

After deactivation, your account will remain dormant until you log in again.

Related: How to Deactivate Your Facebook Account

By default, Facebook will advertise your availability to your friends whenever you are online. This could be on mobile or desktop, showing a green dot next to your name plus how long ago you were active on the service. If you'd rather use the service more privately and fly under the radar, you can turn this off.

You can hide your active status on the desktop by clicking on the ellipsis icon "..." above the "Contacts" section of your news feed that shows who is online or available right now. Click on "Active Status" to toggle the feature off. You'll also want to do this on the mobile app by tapping on your profile image then "Active Status" and disabling the "Show when you're active" setting.

Be aware that when you do this you won't see your friends' active statuses either. Be aware that you can send disappearing messages with Messenger too, and that you don't need an active Facebook profile to communicate with users .

• Online Security

Facebook Privacy Settings: How to Make Facebook Private in 2024

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Facebook and privacy are two mutually exclusive concepts, but there are some Facebook privacy settings you can tweak to make your social media experience a little less invasive. Keep reading to learn more.

Last Updated: 26 Jan'24 2024-01-26T13:24:32+00:00

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If you’re concerned with online privacy, your best bet is to delete your social media accounts and never look back. That said, if you’re not willing to go quite that far, there are some privacy and security settings you can play with to make your Facebook account more private. In this guide to Facebook privacy settings, we’ll cover everything you need to know.

There are a bunch of different privacy options inside Facebook’s settings panel, and navigating them all can be somewhat confusing. What makes this even worse is that Facebook changes these settings relatively frequently, so here we’ll take a look at the steps needed to navigate the new Facebook privacy settings.o

Key Takeaways:

• As long as you have a Facebook account (or any other social media), your online privacy is compromised by default.
• You can use the privacy settings to make your Facebook account a lot more secure and private.
• Consider deleting or deactivating your Facebook account rather than simply changing the privacy settings if you really want your personal information to remain private. This will also limit how many targeted ads you’re exposed to.
• Facebook announced in November 2021 that it would end the use of its facial recognition software, a process that should be completed by December.

Although these steps will make your Facebook profile a bit more locked down, the only way to truly protect your privacy from social media giants is to get rid of your accounts altogether. If that’s something you want to do, you can check out our guides on how to delete Facebook and how to delete Instagram .

Updated guide to reflect changes in the Facebook privacy settings, added information about Facebook removing facial recognition software, and replaced the images.

Basic Facebook Privacy Settings

Before we dive into the advanced privacy settings that Facebook lets you adjust, let’s first do a quick security roundup to make sure that your account is safe from any unauthorized access. 

We’ll be using a web browser for these instructions, as it’s the easiest way to adjust all of your settings, but you can also use the Facebook app for some of them.

How to Make a Strong Password

The first step to keeping any account secure is to make sure you have a strong password . You can do this in a couple of different ways, either by using a password manager , or by simply following some basic password best practices such as using numbers, symbols and both uppercase and lowercase letters. A long password is also preferable to a short one.

If you’re not sure whether your password is strong, you can check its strength or generate a highly secure password using our password generator . Once you have a secure password ready, here’s how you can change your existing Facebook password.

Go to facebook.com and log in to your account using your credentials.

Once you’re logged in, click on the arrow in the top-right corner of the screen, select “settings & privacy,” then “settings.”

Click on “security and login” in the menu on the left side of the screen. Scroll down to the entry called “change password” in the “login” section . Click on it, then enter your current password as well as your new (hopefully stronger) password.

How to Add Two-Factor Authentication

Sometimes not even a strong password is enough to keep your account safe. No matter how strong it is, if someone else gets a hold of your password, there’s nothing stopping them from logging into your account. The solution to this is two-factor authentication , which adds an extra layer of security. Here’s how you enable 2FA for Facebook.

Navigate to facebook.com in the web browser of your choice and log in using your email and password .

Click the arrow in the top-right corner of the screen, then select “settings & privacy” followed by “settings.”

Once in the settings, navigate to “security and login” and find the entry for two-factor authentication . Click the “edit” button and you’ll be shown an overview of the various 2FA options you can enable.

You can now choose between receiving an SMS whenever you try to log in or using a third-party 2FA app or device to authenticate yourself. Click the option you’d like and follow the setup instructions .

How to Run a Security Checkup

If you’re not quite sure what measures you need to take to improve your account’s security, Facebook provides a security checkup feature that checks it all and lets you know if there are any improvements to be made. Here’s how you access it.

As usual, the first step is to go to facebook.com and log in using your account credentials .

Click on the arrow in the top-right corner and select “settings & privacy” and then “settings.”

Select “security and login” in the menu on the left side of the screen. Click on the button at the top of the page that says “check your important security settings.”

Once in the security check, the first thing you’ll see is an overview of your security settings, as well as recommendations for improving them. You can now click “continue” and follow the instructions to make any of the recommended changes.

Adjusting the Privacy Settings on Facebook

Now that we’ve covered the security side of things, let’s dive into how you can maximize the privacy of your Facebook account.

How to Change Who Can See Your Future Facebook Posts

The first thing you should do to make your Facebook information more private is to change who can see your future posts.

Navigate to facebook.com and enter your Facebook login details .

Click on the arrow in the top right of Facebook, select “settings & privacy” and then “settings.”

Once in the settings, select “privacy” in the menu and look for the section called “who can see your future posts?” under the section labeled “your activity.” Here you can choose who can see your posts: just your friends, a specific subset of your friends or only you.

How to Limit Past Posts’ Visibility Manually

Once you’ve made your future posts more private, it’s time to undo any privacy mistakes of the past and hide posts you’ve already made as well. There are two ways to do this: in bulk or manually for each individual post. First we’ll cover how to do it for individual posts.

Use a web browser to open facebook.com and enter your Facebook login information .

Click the arrow in the top right of the Facebook window, select “settings & privacy,” followed by “settings” and then “privacy” in the menu you’re redirected to.

Under the “your activity” section you’ll see a menu entry called “review all your posts and things you’re tagged in.” Click that and you’ll be redirected to a new page.

By default, you’ll end up at an overview of everything you’re tagged in. Since you’re looking for your own posts, select “your posts” in the menu on the left, which will bring you to a full list of all your posts. From here, you can click on the three dots next to each post and choose to hide them.

How to Limit All Your Past Posts’ Visibility

If you’d rather just limit the audience for all your past posts and photos all at once, you can do that too.

Start by going to facebook.com in your web browser and enter your credentials to access your account.

Click the arrow in the top-right corner of the Facebook window, click “settings & privacy,” then “settings.” This will take you to a new page with a menu on the left side of the screen. Select “privacy” from that menu.

Find the section labeled “your activity” and the entry inside called “limit the audience for old posts on your timeline.” Click on this and then the button that says “limit past posts.” This will bring up a confirmation window warning you that this can’t be undone in bulk. If you’re sure, click on “limit past posts” again .

How to Make Your Facebook Profile Private

Making your Facebook profile as private as possible is a somewhat cumbersome process, as you’ll need to individually specify who can see all the different types of information tied to your profile page.

Visit facebook.com using a web browser and enter your email address and password to log in .

Once logged in, click on your profile picture and first name near the top-right side of the browser window. This will take you to your profile page. From here, click on the “about” section that sits in between “posts” and “friends.”

From here you need to go through each different category, such as employment information, education, places you’ve lived and so on and click the little icon that either looks like a globe or a group of people on each entry . There you can pick whether the selected information is visible to everyone, only friends, a specific list of people or only you.

How to Turn off Facial Recognition

Few things are as blatantly harmful to online privacy as facial recognition. Facebook uses this to automatically identify you in pictures, including those that others post.

However, on Nov. 2, 2021, Facebook announced it would end the use of facial recognition , with that change being complete by December. Until then, you can turn off facial recognition with the following steps.

Open your web browser and navigate to facebook.com where you can enter your login credentials .

Click the arrow in the top-right corner and select “settings & privacy,” then “settings,” which will open up the full Facebook settings menu. Select the “face recognition” option in the menu on the left side.

Here, simply click on the “edit” button and select “no” from the dropdown menu that appears.

How to Make Check-Ins Private on Facebook

You can’t really make check-ins completely private. This is because check-ins post to the page of the location or business you’re checking in to, as well as your own profile page. What you can do is hide the section on your profile that shows your past check-ins — here’s how.

Open up the web browser of your choice and go to facebook.com where you can log in to your account .

Click your profile picture and name near the top right of the browser window which will open up your Facebook profile. From there, click on the section called “about.”

Scroll down to the section called “check-ins” and click the button with three dots . This will give you the option to hide the check-in section on your profile.

How To Make Yourself Unsearchable on Facebook

Unfortunately, it’s no longer possible to make yourself completely unsearchable on Facebook — not even if you change all the settings to “only me.” If someone uses your name to find you, you’ll always appear somewhere in the search results. What you can do is decide whether or not people can find you using your email address or phone number, and here’s how you do that.

Use a web browser to open facebook.com and enter your email address and password to log in .

Click on the arrow in the top right , select “settings & privacy,” followed by “settings” and then finally “privacy” in the menu that appears on the left side of the screen.

Scroll down to the section labeled “how people find and contact you” and look for the entry that says “who can look you up using the email address you provided?” Click that and you’ll see a dropdown menu where you can choose between everyone, friends, friends of friends or only you.

In the same section as the previous step, find the entry called “who can look you up using the phone number you provided?” Click that and you’ll get an identical dropdown menu where you can restrict this setting to everyone, your Facebook friends, friends of friends or just you.

Change Who Can See Your Friends List

Another part of your online life that you might want to keep private is who your Facebook friends are. To do this you’ll need to limit who can see the friends list on your profile page.

Go to facebook.com and log in using your email address and password .

Click the arrow in the top-right corner, select “settings & privacy,” then “settings” and finally “privacy” once you’ve been redirected to the “settings” menu.

Scroll down to the section called “how people find and contact you” and find “who can see your friends list?” Click it and select the option you want in the dropdown menu.

Stop Other Search Engines From Displaying Your Facebook Account

If you’ve ever googled your name, you might have noticed that one of the first results that pop up is your Facebook profile. Depending on how common your name is, this can make your online presence very easy to find for just about anyone. Luckily you can disable this in just a few steps.

Open up facebook.com in a web browser and log in using your credentials .

Once logged in, you can click the arrow in the top right of the window, select “settings & privacy” followed by “settings.” This will bring you to the main settings menu, where you need to select “privacy” on the left-hand side.

Scroll down to the section called “how people find and contact you” and find the line that’s labeled “do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile?” Click it and deselect the checkbox inside . A confirmation window will open; click “turn off” to confirm.

Limit Who Can See What You Follow

Another thing you can stop people from seeing on your Facebook profile are the pages, people and groups that you follow.

Go to facebook.com and enter your credentials to log in.

Click the arrow icon that sits in the top-right corner of all Facebook pages. Select “settings & privacy” and then “settings.” This will bring you to the main settings panel for your Facebook account. Choose “privacy” in the menu on the left .

Scroll down to the section called “your activity” and click on “who can see the people, pages and lists you follow?” This will bring up a dropdown menu where you can choose between everyone, your Facebook friends, a subset of your friends or just you.

Limit Who Can Send You Friend Requests

It’s not uncommon to get flooded with random friend requests — usually from bots — if you don’t limit who can send you requests. Here’s how you make sure not just anyone can ask to be your friend on Facebook.

Go to facebook.com and enter your login credentials to access your account

Click the arrow in the top-right corner, select “settings & privacy,” then “settings” and finally “privacy” in the new menu that opens on the left.

Scroll down to the section called “how people find and contact you” and look for the entry labeled “who can send you friend requests?” Select the option you want from the dropdown menu , whether that’s everyone or just friends of friends.

Revoke Permissions From Apps and Websites

Apps and websites that you use Facebook to sign in to will keep collecting your data long after you stop using the service in question. Therefore, it’s a good idea to routinely revoke app and website permissions.

Use a web browser to visit facebook.com and log in using your details .

Click on the arrow in the top right . In the small menu that opens, click on “settings & privacy,” followed by “settings.”

Once in the settings menu, select “apps and websites” in the menu on the left side. This will bring up a list of all your app permissions, as well as a button next to each one to remove them.

Change Your Ad Settings

Ads are the primary reason Facebook wants your personal information to begin with. For that reason, it makes sense to restrict your ad settings as much as you possibly can.

Navigate to facebook.com using any web browser and enter your credentials to log in.

Click the arrow in the top-right corner of the browser window, select “settings & privacy” and then “settings.”

Scroll through the menu that appears on the left side of the screen until you see the entry called “ads.” Click on it and you’ll be redirected to a new page.

The first ads page you’ll see is a list of ads you’ve been shown recently. You can go through these and hide specific advertisers if you’d like, or keep going to the next step to change your ad settings.

Click on “ad settings” in the menu on the left side of the screen, which will bring up a new panel. Here, you can stop Facebook from using data from partners to show ads. You can hide specific information from advertisers like your “about” page, interests and categories, and stop advertisers from showing you ads outside of Facebook.

Final Thoughts

With that we’ve reached the end of our Facebook privacy guide. As we’ve mentioned already, those actually concerned with their online privacy should stay as far away from Facebook as possible.

However, for many the service has become a necessary utility and if that’s the case for you, you should at least do everything you can to make your account as private as it can be. We also recommend to use the best VPN server for TikTok.

Be sure to check out our piece on Facebook’s rebrand to Meta, too. If you’re grappling with ads on Facebook, read our guide to learn how to stop ads on Facebook .

What did you think of our instructions for how to make your Facebook private? Were they clear and easy to follow? Do you think we missed some crucial privacy settings? Let us know in the comments below. Thank you for reading.

There are a lot of different privacy settings you can change on your Facebook account. It’ll never be completely private, but if you follow this guide you’ll lock down your profile as much as you possibly can.

Although it’s possible to change some privacy settings on the Facebook mobile app, we recommend using the browser, as you won’t have access to the full range of privacy options otherwise.

That depends on your level of comfort with online privacy violations and social media in general. If you want to keep your Facebook account but also limit how much data about you is out there, we recommend following all the steps in this guide and changing all the settings to “only me.”

How do you limit who can see your profile picture and profile photos?

I think it sucks that often my only option to make an account on a game app is with my Facebook account, and I can’t log in when I’m deactivated on Facebook, because life.

i dont want to make my facebook searchable in facebook search engine. Why is facebook still not making this possible?

How do I prevent my photos from not being seen when someone searches for me on fb?

Mama please my account delete please check the account restore backup

Oh gawd just seen i’ve literally hundreds of apps installed – do i really have to click through one by one to revoke permissions? why is there no app for that?

There is no dropdown at the top right. The menu on the left has Nothing about privacy. FB is making it impossible, as usual.

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> Resources > Make Facebook Profile Private

The Visual Guide to Making Your Facebook Profile Private Again

Are you concerned about how much personal information you're revealing on Facebook? In this article, I'll show you how to keep private on Facebook, the most public of social networks.

I’ve often said that if you look up a list of antonyms for the word “privacy” that “Facebook” would be at the top of the list. Let’s face it, if you use Facebook, you’re probably sharing more about yourself and your private information than you should be.

Facebook is a “free” online social network. What this means is that while Facebook doesn’t charge you a monthly fee (and most likely never will, contrary to many online rumors), it does take something from you that’s much more valuable: your personal information.

• How Does Facebook Make Money?

Facebook sells the personal data it collects from you to its advertisers, so they can better target ads to convince you to buy things. The social network’s parent company, Meta collected nearly $118 billion in revenue during 2021, a 37.18% increase from close to $86 billion in revenue during 2020.

All of this is based on personal information that the service’s users give up completely voluntarily.

“But, it’s too late for me,” I can hear many of you say. “I’m already in too deep. Go help others by sharing my tale of woe.”

Not so fast, Sparky. There is still hope for you – and your privacy.

In this article, I’m going to guide you through the many ways you can keep your Facebook profile private from the moment you first set it up.

And, for those of you who have been using Facebook and oversharing your private info with advertisers and scam artists, I’m going to show you how to make your profile private again.

While it’s impossible to completely lock your Facebook profile down, I’ll share some tips that will allow you to keep the important parts of your Facebook profile private, while still allowing you to enjoy the service and stay in touch with friends and family.

• What Kind of Information Facebook Collects

Before starting to lock down your profile, I’m going to go over some of the interesting information that is included on the Facebook Privacy page . It offers a great amount of information on what type of data the service collects, how they use that data for their own operations, how they share it, and much more.

This section of the article should have actually been entitled, “What Kind of Information Facebook DOESN’T Collect.” It would have been a much shorter section, believe me.

The amount and types of info that Facebook collects about you varies depending on what services and such you make use of on the social network. To take a look at Facebook’s own listing of what types of information they collect, scroll down to the bottom of your Facebook page and look in the lower left-hand corner for the “Privacy” link, as shown below. Click that link.

Once you’re on the Facebook Privacy page, click the first link, the one entitled: “What information do we collect?”

As you’ll soon find out, Facebook collects just about everything you can think of about you and your connection, and maybe a few things you didn’t think of. Let’s go over it section by section, shall we?

Your Activity and Information You Provide

Facebook collects information from you when you sign up for their social network. They collect your name, your email address or phone number, your gender, and your birthdate. That is almost all the information you’re required to furnish when you’re applying for a credit card online.

Once you’re signed up for Facebook, the data collection and mining begin in earnest. The social network collects info about how you use their service, including the types of content you view and engage with, and how much time you spend engaged with that content.

Facebook collects information about your posts, comments, and audio, as well as content you create through the service’s camera features or through its voice-enabled features. It also looks at the content of messages that you send and receive, except for end-to-end encrypted messages (and they can look at them if someone lodges a complaint about your messages). It also tracks the hashtags you use (#nosynellies).

They also have access to metadata related to your content and messages. They also track the types of content you view and interact with. As well as how you interact with it. It also tracks the apps and features you use, and how you use them. It tracks your purchases and transactions, including credit card information. It tracks when you access its products, how often you do that, and how long you take while doing so.

Friends, Followers, and Other Connections

The service also collects information about friends, followers, groups, accounts, Facebook Pages and other users, and communities you’re connected to and interact with. This includes how you interact with them across Meta’s products and services, as well as which ones you interact with the most. They also track the contact information about those individuals that you might upload, enter, or import into the service.

Information About Payments

If you use Facebook Services for purchases or other financial transactions, such as when you buy something in a game or donate to a charity, they collect info about the deal. Information collected includes billing, shipping, and contact details.

App, Browser, and Device Information

They learn all about the computers and other electronic devices you use to access Facebook. This includes your device’s operating system, hardware version, settings, software names and types, battery and signal strength, and device identifiers.

It also tracks what you’re doing on your device, whether Facebook is in the foreground and even if your mouse is moving. (The service says it’s to tell human activity from bot activity.

It doesn’t stop there, though. Also collected is information about your device’s current location, which it receives using your device’s GPS, Bluetooth, and WiFi signals. The social network also collects info about your mobile carrier or ISP, the type of browser you’re using to access Facebook, and your language, local time zone, cell phone number, and current IP address.

Information From Websites and Apps That Use Facebook Services

When you click “Like” for a third-party website or app that uses Facebook’s services, or when you use the Facebook Login option to connect to their websites, the network grabs information from those sites and services. This includes info about the websites and apps you use, how you use their services, and the information you provide to said website or app.

Information From Third-Party Partners

Companies that Facebook partners with or that advertise on Facebook also supply information to Facebook on your experiences or interactions with them.

Facebook Companies

The social network also gathers info about you from companies that are owned or operated by Facebook. These companies include Instagram, Oculus, WhatsApp, and many other firms.

• How Does Facebook Use the Information It Collects?

Facebook doesn’t gather all of this personal information about its users simply because they’re curious. Their entire business model is built on collecting personal information about their users.

The network says they collect the info so they can create “engaging and customized experiences” for their users. More importantly, they share all of this gathered information with their advertisers and business partners. (And, they collect a nice piece of change for doing it.)

The social network says they use the collected information to provide shortcuts and suggestions, such as offering a suggestion about which friends to tag in a photo you’ve just posted. They use location information to suggest nearby events and businesses.

Facebook seems open enough about using your information for profit, as they list a good number of the ways they sell your personal info and usage statistics to their partners. They admit to using it to tailor ads to your activities on the site. The service claims they keep personally-identifying information private unless you give them permission.

Information shared with advertisers includes how the customer’s ad performed, which includes how many users viewed the ad or installed an app after viewing the ad.

Non-identifying demographic information is also supplied to advertisers. This info includes such statistics as the gender of the user, their country of origin, and their likes and dislikes.

If you’re interested in why you see a particular ad or types of ads, you can review your Facebook advertising preferences to help better understand why you’re getting all of those ads for nail fungus remedies.

• Facebook Privacy Tools

Believe it or not, Facebook actually has privacy tools built into their community, which are designed to help you somewhat protect your online profile. I say “somewhat” because let’s face it: Facebook still wants to collect personal information about you to sell.

Almost none of the settings I’m going to show you are enabled by default, so if you haven’t already taken a look at these settings and modified them in your favor, you are not protected by them.

So, let’s dig in and start making your Facebook profile private again.

Ad Preferences

Facebook is all about serving up ads based on your profile, activities, “Likes”, and any other information they can glean from your usage. So let’s look closer at limiting what they can use. We’ll be looking at the “Ad Preferences” section on Facebook, so make sure you’re logged in, and then visit the Ad Preferences page .

On the Ad Preferences page, you’ll find three options that you can click:

Advertisers

Ad settings.

In this section, you can take a look at “Advertisers you’ve hidden” and “Advertisers whose ads you’ve clicked.”

When you click “Advertisers you’ve hidden” you’ll find a list of advertisers that you’ve hidden in Facebook. If you so decide, you can click the “Undo” button next to an advertiser’s name to once again allow Facebook to show ads from them.

On the “Advertisers whose ads you’ve clicked” page, you’ll see a list of the advertisers that you’ve clicked on their ads for more information. (Seems logical, right?) If you decide that you don’t want to see any additional ads from an advertiser on the list you can simply click on the “Hide Ads” button next to an advertiser’s name.

In this section, you can view the topics used by advertisers to display ads in your feeds. (Advertisers can choose to reach you based on topics Facebook thinks you like from your activity.) You can click each topic and click to see less ads based on this topic, if you so wish.

You can also click ad topics that you’re currently seeing ads based on and designate whether or not you’d like to continue to see less of each ad.

In this section, you can control how your Facebook data and usage is used when the social network shows you ads.

You can control whether ads are personalized based on your activity on other websites, apps, or even offline. Also available are options to control which of your interests are used to show ads, the advertisers that are allowed to use your activity and information, and how advertisers are allowed to reach you when you’re on other sites.

• Your Facebook Information

This area allows you to view or download your profile information and manage your personal profile activity.

• “Access profile information” allows you to view your activity across Facebook, your personal information and connections, the information that Facebook logs about your activity, your preferences, and more.
• “Transfer a copy of your information” allows you to transfer your Facebook photos, videos, notes, and posts to another service, such as Google Photos and Docs, Dropbox, and other services.
• “Download profile information” allows you to download a copy of your profile info to keep or transfer to another service.
• “Activity log” allows you to view a log of all of your Facebook activity, including your interactions, activities you’ve been tagged in, your connections, your profile info, and more.
• “Off-Facebook Activity” allows you to view and/or clear the activities you’ve engaged in with businesses and organizations you visit off of Facebook.
• “Managing your information” is where you can learn more about how to manage your information on both Facebook and Instagram.
• “Deactivation and deletion” allows you to temporarily deactivate your Facebook account or even permanently delete it.

• Managing Your Privacy

By default, any posts you make on Facebook can be seen by the “Public.”

This means anyone, whether they are connected to you or not, can view your posts. While this may not be a big deal for many of your posts, there may be others that you only want friends to see. And occasionally, you may post things you want some of your friends to see, but not others.

To take a look at what your current setting is, go to the “Settings” page. Just click your profile photo, located in the upper right-hand corner of your Facebook page. Then click “Settings & Privacy” in the menu that appears. Then click “Settings” in the next menu that appears.

In the Settings menu, click the “Privacy” menu item. This will display the “Privacy Settings and Tools” in your browser, as shown below.

We’re going to be looking at the “Your Activity” section first.

Who Can See Your Future Posts?

Right at the top of the “Your Activity” section is the “Who can see your future posts?” setting. This setting allows you to manage the privacy of what you share on Facebook. Whichever option you select here will be the default for any future posts you make.

The options are (make sure you click “See all” to see all of the options):

• Public – Anyone on or off Facebook can see “Public” posts.
• Friends – Only those Facebook users you have added as “Friends” will be able to view your new posts.
• Friends except… – If you click this menu option, you can designate which of your friends will NOT be able to see your future posts.
• Specific friends – This option allows you to specify the only Facebook friends that WILL be allowed to see future posts.
• Only me – If you select this option, your future posts will only be seen by yourself; no one else will have access to them. This seems to defeat the purpose of posting on a social network, but I guess there could be uses for this.

You can also make the same changes to Limit The Audience for Old Posts on Your Timeline and limit who can see the people, pages, and lists you follow.

How People Find and Contact You

“Who can send you friend requests?” defaults to “Everyone,” which means any Facebook user can send you a friend request, which is why you’re currently receiving requests from users who have absolutely no connection to you.

This section allows users to designate who can send them friend requests.

Since there is not a “No one” option, I suggest setting this to “Friends of friends” – at least then you’ll have some connection to users reaching out to you.

Who Can See Your Friends List?

This controls who can see your friends list on Facebook. Luckily, the social network has provided an “Only Me” option for this setting. I recommend setting this option to “Only Me.”

Who Can Look Me Up?

This section of the Privacy menu controls which Facebook users can look you up, via either the email address or the phone number you provided when you signed up for Facebook. It also controls whether or not search engines outside of Facebook can link to your profile.

For both the email and phone number “look me up” settings, now have four choices: “Everyone,” “Friends of friends,” “Friends,” and “Only me.” If you want to keep your Facebook profile completely private, I suggest selecting “Only me.” This is as tightly as you can lock both of these settings down.

As for the “Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile?” setting, it depends on what you’re trying to accomplish with your Facebook profile.

If you’re trying to gain publicity for your business or project, or you’re just trying to get your name out there, allow search engines to link to your profile. If you’re just connecting with friends and family, don’t allow this.

Either way, your profile can still be found by users searching via Facebook.

How You Get Message Requests

These settings allow you to decide whether message requests will go to your Chats list, your Message requests folder, or whether you’ll receive them at all.

You can control whether or not you receive message requests from People with your phone number, Friends of friends on Facebook, Accounts you follow or have chatted with on Instagram, Your followers on Instagram, Others on Facebook, and Others on Instagram.

The available options include “Chats,” “Message requests,” and “Don’t receive requests.” If you completely want to lock down requests, choose “Don’t receive requests.” If you want to be sociable but still want some control, select “Message requests.”

Profile and Tagging

Facebook’s Profile and Tagging settings control who can add things to your timeline, who can see things on your timeline, and what tags other users can add to posts and photos.

Who can post on your profile?

In the “Who can post on your profile?” section, you can control whether or not to allow your Facebook friends to add items on your profile.

If allowed, friends can post things like a Happy Birthday greeting on your Timeline, or your Timeline will show when they tag you in a post. Setting it to “Only me” locks down your account to only allow your own posts to appear in your Timeline.

Who can see what others post on your profile?

Here, you can review what others will see on your Timeline, who can see posts that you’ve been tagged in, and who can see what others post on your Timeline.

Also, in the “Tagging” section is the ability to set whether or not you want to review posts friends tag you in before they appear on your Timeline. If this is enabled, you will be required to review each post by others to your Timeline.

This setting only controls what is allowed to display on your Timeline. Any posts you’re tagged in will still appear in Facebook search, News Feed, and other places around the Facebook network.

One handy tool included here is the ability to see your Timeline as others would see it. You can view your Timeline as how the Facebook Public would see it, or how a specific user would see it. This is quite handy when you want to make sure you have certain posts hidden from the right (or wrong) set of eyes.

The “Blocking” section of the Settings menu offers you a set of tools to allow you to add friends to a “Restricted List,” completely block a user, block messages from a specific user, block app and event invites, block apps, and block pages.

Restricted List

The Restricted List allows you to add friends who should not see posts on Facebook shared only with friends. Restricted users will still see things that are shared with the Public or to a mutual friend’s Timeline. They also still see posts they are tagged in. Don’t worry – your friends aren’t notified when they’re added to the Restricted List.

Block Users

This section allows you to completely block other Facebook users. This is handy for blocking bullies, exes, and those who you no longer want to communicate with, but who can’t seem to take a hint.

When added to this list, users cannot post on your timeline, invite you to events or groups, start a conversation with you, or add you as a friend.

Block Messages

This option allows you to block messages and video calls from anyone you place on the list. While they won’t be able to contact you in the Messenger app, they may still be able to post to your Timeline or tag you, and comment on your posts or comments – unless they have been specifically blocked from doing so in your Restricted List.

Block App Invites

When you add a Facebook user to this list, it means you’ll no longer see future app requests from that user. If you haven’t added the friend to this list already, and they send you an app invite, you can click the “Ignore All Invites From This Friend” link under their latest request.

Block Event Invites

Adding a friend to this list means you’ll no longer receive any event invites from that friend.

In this section, you can add Facebook apps to a block list. Once an app is blocked, it can no longer contact you in any way or retrieve any private info about you.

Block Pages

Any Page name entered here loses the right to interact with your posts, like your posts and comments, or reply to your comments. You will also no longer be able to post to the Page’s Timeline or message the Page. Blocking a Page also unlikes and unfollows it.

• Apps and Websites Settings

The Facebook Apps and Websites Settings menu offers you a single location to view which apps use your Facebook credentials for logins and which apps and websites you can review and manage the non-public information each app or website has permission to access, or remove their access. You can edit apps’ access or delete the apps you no longer use.

If you’re locking down your Facebook profile, I highly recommend going through all of the apps and scoping out their settings.

To edit an app’s settings, simply click the “View and Edit” button.

Once you’ve clicked the “View and Edit” button, you’ll be presented with a listing of what Facebook-related information you provide to this app. Such information can include your name and profile information, your email address, birthday, page likes, and friends list.

You can completely remove the app or website access or remove each setting. I have been on Facebook for well over 10 years now, and I was amazed at how many apps I had used my Facebook credentials to access.

I imagine my intention in my more security-naive days was to make it easier to keep track of logins, but I must admit, there were plenty of “WTF?” (What the Fudge) moments while I was perusing the list of apps.

I ended up deleting 99% of the app authorizations I had agreed to over the years. (It’s a few months later, and I haven’t experienced any lack of use from removing the authorizations.)

While it may take a bit of time to work your way through the list of apps you’ve given your Facebook credentials to, it‘s worth it to lock down the ones you want to keep and delete the apps you either don’t use or can’t remember setting up in the first place.

• Action Steps

We’ve looked at quite a few settings that are related to maintaining the privacy of your Facebook profile. While going through each category and locking down certain settings to make your Facebook profile more private may be time-consuming, it will pay dividends for your peace of mind in the end.

To make your Facebook profile private while still allowing you to make use of the social aspects of the network, be sure to do the following:

Know What Information Facebook Collects About You & Exactly How Facebook Uses It

Make sure you know exactly what information Facebook collects on you and your online actions. This comes under the heading of, “If something is free, then you’re the product being sold.”

Pay close attention to what Facebook does with the information it collects about you and your actions. Pay particular attention to who they share the information with.

Learn About Facebook’s Privacy Tools and How To Use Them To Protect Your Personal Information

Familiarize yourself with the tools Facebook supplies to lock down your privacy settings. Don’t just assume your personal info is protected from prying eyes.

Control How Facebook Follows You Around the Web, What Ads It Displays, and What Personal Info the Service Shares With Advertisers

Again, if you want to keep your personal info as private as possible, then you shouldn’t be on Facebook. But seriously, keep track of how your information is shared with advertisers. There’s no need for them to know you better than you know yourself.

If you don’t want to see ads for the Squatty Potty one hundred times a day all because you clicked on the wrong unicorn photo, lock Facebook out from following you around on the other parts of the internet.

Make Sure You Know Exactly Who Will See Your New Posts

This is especially important if your posts tend to be a bit risque, and Father Mulcahy follows you.

It’s even worse if you leave all of your posts on “public,” because then everyone – including potential employers – will be able to see what you were up to in Las Vegas. (What happens there really doesn’t stay there if it’s posted on Facebook. Or Twitter, or Instagram, or…). Lock it down.

Control Who Can Look You Up and Contact You on Facebook

Restrict who can look you up to “Friends” or “Friends of Friends.” I have it set to “Friends.” Strangers don’t need to be able to access any of your personal info, even if it’s just a photo of you at Spring Break ‘04.

And if you don’t want all sorts of unusual characters – and the occasional hacker – sending you a friend request, then lock this one down to only “Friends of Friends.” At least then you have a chance at having something in common.

Stop Outside Search Engines From Linking to Your Facebook Profile

This controls whether or not everyone on the internet can search for your Facebook profile via Google. If your profile is for business, then allow it. A personal one? Nope – keep it locked away.

Control Who Is Allowed to Post to Your Timeline, and What They See on Your Timeline

If your Facebook friends can be trusted to only post cheerful Happy Birthday greetings and such on your Timeline, then by all means, allow your friends to do so. If you have friends like mine, who tend to fall on the mischief-making side of things, lock it down to “Only me.”

Make use of the handy ability to see your Timeline as the public or a specific Facebook user would see it, so you can lock things down accordingly.

Learn How to Review and Manage the Tags Other Users Add to Your Posts and Photos

Keep this one on a short leash to limit your exposure on the web.

Learn How to Block Users, Messages, Event Invites, and App Requests

If you have former friends, lovers, or golfing partners you no longer wish to communicate with on Facebook, learn how to block them as I’ve shown you in this article. Perfect for those clingy folks who just won’t let go.

If you still want to be friends, but can’t stand it when they send you messages, invites, or especially those aggravating game invites (don’t get me started), you can selectively decide how they can communicate with you.

Know Which Apps Use Your Facebook Credentials and Adjust the Settings Accordingly

I’m willing to bet you have scores of apps that you’ve granted access to your Facebook credentials over the years. (It’s just so darned easy!) Make sure to go through the list when you get a chance. You’ll be surprised at how many are on the list. (DELETE! DELETE! DELETE!)

• Facebook Privacy FAQs
• How Can I Make My Facebook Profile Private?

By default, any posts you make on Facebook can be seen by the “Public.” Go to the “Settings” page. (Click the down arrow icon next to the help icon in the upper right-hand corner of your Facebook page.) In the Settings menu, click the “Privacy” menu item to view “Privacy Settings and Tools.” Here, you can adjust your privacy settings, as described in this article.

• Who Can See My Facebook Posts?

By default, any posts you make on Facebook can be seen by the “Public.” This means any Facebook user can see your posts. However, you can control the visibility of each individual post by clicking on the pull-down menu below your name on the "Create Post" prompt.

• Why Can’t We Be Friends?

Occasionally, it may seem as if you and Facebook are engaged in a perpetual game of “ Spy vs. Spy .”

However, the information I’ve shared with you in this article will help you take back your privacy on Facebook. And once you have it back, make sure to never let it go! (Was that too 30’s romance movie-ish? Because it felt 30’s romance movie-ish. But frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.)

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How to Make Your Facebook Private

Make your Facebook profile harder to find with this guide.

Getting by without Facebook can be difficult these days, since so many people have a profile. But that doesn't mean your profile needs to be easy to find.

There are many reasons you might want to make your Facebook private. It could have something to do with your job, or you simply might not want people you don't like finding you.

This article will walk you through how to make your Facebook Private, largely through managing your account settings.

Why Make Your Facebook Private?

If you use Facebook, you might wonder why someone would want to set a social networking profile private in the first place. But not everyone wants to use Facebook as a social networking site.

Between app integrations, mobile APIs, and websites that let you sign in through Facebook, having a Facebook profile has lots of benefits. This is true for people who would rather not use Facebook to actually connect with people.

Think of things you may have done to access services without getting extra content in the past; things like taking your phone number out of the book, using a P.O. box instead of a street address, or setting up a junk email. Learning how to make your Facebook private is kind of like that.

If you don't have a Facebook account yet, you can make an anonymous Facebook profile instead. But, if you already have one, making this private is an easier and faster alternative.

Facebook doesn't give you any single toggle to turn your whole account private. It does, however, provide two central settings menus to help with this.

From any page on Facebook, click on the arrow icon in the toolbar in the upper-right corner of the window. From the dropdown menu, select Settings & privacy . Then, choose Settings .

This brings you to a new page with a stacked menu along the left side, where you can control most elements of your Facebook profile. To make your profile private, we'll only really need to explore two of these menus: Privacy and Profile and tagging .

How to Hide Your Facebook Profile

Select Privacy from the menu along the left side of the screen. The bottom two fields are How people can find and contact you , and How you get message requests .

Both of these sections have multiple switches that control how other people find your page and find you through contact info on your page.

Along the right side of the screen, your current settings are displayed. Click on the current setting to open a dropdown menu of alternate options.

One of the bottom lists in this dropdown menu reads Only Me , and has a lock icon next to it. Select this on all applicable fields and your profile will pretty much be invisible.

One of the only settings in this field that works differently is a Yes/No toggle that prevents search engines from displaying your Facebook profile. For a private Facebook profile, you'll want to set this to No .

This page is also where you should go if you want to manage privacy settings for specific posts . So, even if you do make your Facebook page as private as possible, you can make individual posts more public if you want to.

How to Set Tag Restrictions

While you can't prevent people from tagging you in things, you can prevent things that other people tag you in from showing up on your profile.

From the same screen mentioned above, you can make your account even more private by selecting Profile and tagging from the menu along the left side of the window. Use these fields to adjust how or whether users can see posts by other people that mention you on your profile.

The final section, Reviewing , lets you review tags on posts before they appear on your profile. This allows you to control the content that others see on your profile on a case-by-case basis, rather than preventing that content from appearing altogether. Turn these on or off, depending on your preference.

The second section in the Reviewing field, Review what other people see on your profile , lets you see your profile as other users see it so that you can test whether it's as private as you want it to be. Make the changes you desire before saving; they should come into effect straight away.

Now You Know How to Make Facebook Private

While you can't just switch your profile to private, you can get pretty close---and these steps will help you do just that.

Once you've made these changes, you'll be able to enjoy the benefits of Facebook without letting others find your profile as easily as before.

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How to make your Facebook as private as possible: Adjust your profile’s privacy settings

• You can use Facebook’s Privacy menu to limit who can see your posts, profile, and more.
• Setting every option to “Only Me” will make your Facebook profile completely private.
• You can also set up reminders to update your privacy settings using the Privacy Checkup tool.

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Facebook is still the biggest social media platform in the world. But while it’s convenient for connecting up with friends or colleagues, it also holds more of your personal data than you realize. If you don’t have the right privacy settings, a lot of that personal data might be on public display.

While you can’t control the advertisers and other outside companies that Facebook chooses to sell your information to, there are ways to ensure that other Facebook users can’t see your information unless you want them too.

Here’s how to make your Facebook private.

How to make your Facebook private

Facebook generally has four levels of privacy that you can set your account and posts to:

• Public means that anyone with a link can see it, even if they don’t have a Facebook account.
• Friends means that only people on your friends list can see it. You can even exclude certain friends from seeing a post, too.
• Friends of friends means that anyone who you share a mutual friend with can see it.
• Only me means that it’s totally private, and you’re the only one who can see it.

If you want to make your Facebook as private as possible, you’ll want to choose Only me whenever you can.

While some of Facebook’s privacy tools are available in the mobile app, you’ll need to open Facebook’s desktop version to find all of them.

To get to Facebook’s Privacy menu:

1. Open the Facebook website and log into your account. If you’re not sure how to log into your Facebook account, we’ve got step-by-step instructions for that too!

2. Click your profile picture in the top-right corner, and then select Settings & privacy in the menu that appears. 

3. In the submenu, click Settings .

4. On the Settings page that opens, click Privacy in the left sidebar.

This will open the Privacy Settings and Tools page with more options: 

Make your posts private

First, head to Your Activity section to change who’s allowed to see your posts, posts you’ve been tagged in, and pages that you follow.

• Click Who can see your future posts? to change the privacy settings for everything you post from now on.
• Click Who can see the people, Pages and lists you follow? to change who’s allowed to see what you’re following.
• Clicking either Review all your posts and things you’re tagged in or Limit the audience for posts you’ve shared with friends of friends or Public? will take you to a new page where you can edit the privacy settings on changes you’ve already uploaded.

Hide your profile so people can’t find you

If you’re concerned about who can find and view your Facebook profile, the How People Find and Contact You tools can help keep you hidden.

• Click Who can send you friend requests to limit the amount of people allowed to friend you. Just note that you can’t turn friend requests off completely — the best you can do is limit them to mutual friends.
• The Who can see your friends list ? option can hide your friends list, so people can’t see who’s in your network.
• Both Who can look you up using the email address you provided? and Who can look you up using the phone number you provided? options can make it so even if someone already has your contact information, they won’t be able to find you on Facebook.
• Clicking Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile? lets you hide your profile from Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other search engines. This is useful if you’re worried about people finding you by googling your name — just note that it can take a few days to process.

Stop people from messaging you

Using the How You Get Message Requests section, you can limit who’s allowed to message you. You can also choose to receive certain messages but filter them into their own folder, away from your inbox.

• Under Potential Connections , choose where messages from people who have your phone number and/or mutual friends go. You can choose Chats (your regular inbox), Message requests (a separate folder), or Don’t receive requests (deletes them).
• Under Other people , make the same choice for people you’re not connected to and Instagram users. Here, you can’t choose to receive their messages in your regular inbox — you have to choose either Message requests or Don’t receive requests .

How to make specific Facebook posts private

The options we talked about above control your entire Facebook account. But you can also set specific privacy settings for individual posts. This means you can keep your Facebook profile private but make a single post public, and vice versa.

1. When you’re creating a Facebook post, click the dropdown button under your name.

2. In the menu that opens, select how private or public you want the post to be.

Once you post, only the audience that you choose will be able to see it.

How to set up privacy check reminders on Facebook

It’s easy to forget to update the Facebook settings mentioned above as your privacy needs change. Luckily, through Privacy Checkup, you can set reminders that periodically alert you to review them.

1. Open the Facebook website and log into your account.

2. Click your profile picture in the top-right corner of the screen, and then select Settings & Privacy in the menu that appears.

3. In the submenu, click Privacy Checkup .

4. On the next screen, click the three horizontal dots and select Set up reminders .

5. In the pop-up, select when you want Facebook to remind you to do a privacy check, and then click Save .

Jennifer Still contributed to a previous version of this article.

William Antonelli

Tech Reporter for Insider Reviews

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UGREEN NASync DXP480T Plus review – Setup your own private cloud storage!

CROWDFUNDING REVIEW – Having backups of our important digital files is something we should make a priority. Losing all your family photos due to a hard drive failure on your ancient desktop computer is a heartbreak you can avoid by implementing a backup process. NAS devices are a great backup solution, and today I want to tell you about the UGREEN NASync DXP480T Plus NAS device, which is one of the new devices in the lineup of new NAS products that Ugreen has launched today on Kickstarter . Let’s check it out.

What is it?

The UGREEN NASync DXP480T Plus NAS device is a NAS device. NAS stands for Network Attached Storage which is basically a hard drive or collection of hard drives (RAID) that is connected to your local network so that all of the devices on your network have access to it either wirelessly or via Ethernet. However, the Ugreen NASync DXP480T Plus is designed to use SSDs instead of traditional hard drives.

Why are NAS devices great? You can use a NAS to create your own private cloud storage system that doesn’t require a monthly subscription.

What’s included?

• UGREEN NASync DXP480T Plus NAS device
• AC power adapter
• Ethernet cable
• Screwdriver
• Silicone thermal pad strips
• User manual

Operating system – UGOS Pro CPU Model – 1235u CPU Brand – Intel CPU Architecture – 12th Generation Intel® CoreTM i5 10 Cores 12 Threads Memory (RAM) – 8GB DDR5 ODECC – Supported Expandable RAM (max) – 64GB Flash Memory (System Disk) – SSD 128GB SATA Drive Bays – N/A M.2. SSD Drive Slots – 4 RAID – JBOD/Basic/RAID0/1/5/6/10 Maximum Storage – 4T*4 LAN Ports (RJ45) – 10GbE*1 PCIe Expansion – N/A ThunderboltTM 4 Ports – 2*TBT4 USB 3 – Rear panel: 1*USB3.2 Gen2，theoretical rate up to 10Gb/s USB 2 – N/A SD Card reader – N/A HDMI – 8K WiFi- Built-in

Design and features

The UGREEN NASync DXP480T Plus is the smallest and most portable NAS device in the new line up of NAS devices that UGREEN has announced/launched today on Kickstarter. It has a sleek design with a space grey aluminum housing with a simple power button on the front. Although it looks like there’s a hard drive bay on behind the PROTECT WHAT YOU LOVE label – which I wish they wouldn’t have put on there, it’s not a bay.

The ports are located on the back and include the AC adapter port, reset switch, 2 USB-C ports, USB 3.2 port, HDMI port, earphone jack, and Ethernet port. You’ll also notice open slots above the ports, which allow heat to escape.

There are also matching slots on the sides of the UGREEN NASync DXP480T Plus NAS device.

Assembly, Installation, Setup

The guts of the UGREEN NASync DXP480T Plus are accessed through an access panel on the bottom of the unit, which I held in place with two screws.

As mentioned previously, this NAS does not use traditional hard drives. When you remove the back panel, you’ll be greeted with 4 M.2 SSD slots when you remove the access panel. Ugreen provided me with four 1T Samsung M.2 SSD sticks to test with this NAS.

Installing the SSDs is simply a matter of plug-and-play.

There’s no way you can screw up the installation of the SSDs because each stick can only go in one way into the card slot.

A small Phillips screw holds the SSD securely in place.

Once all the SSDs are installed, the next step is to apply the included silicone thermal pad strips to each SSD.

Be careful to stick the thermal pads in place, and remember to remove the clear plastic strips on top of each pad before screwing the access panel back on the back of the NAS.

NOTE : You can also add additional memory to the UGREEN NASync DXP480T Plus NAS device . The instructions show that you can remove the whole SSD tray to find memory slots under it. I tried to remove the tray, but I could not get it to unclip and was afraid that I might damage something, so I gave up trying to access it. Here’s a page from the manual so you can see more about it.

The next step is to connect the UGREEN NASync DXP480T Plus NAS device to your local network and turn it on. I plugged the DXP480T Plus into my Synology RT6600AX router .

From here, you have three options for connecting to the NAS. You can use the web, an iOS or Android app, or an app on your Windows PC or macOS computer.

I started out installing the UGREEN NAS app on my MacBook. When I launched the app, it immediately scanned my local network, found the device, and started the setup process, which consisted of creating a user account.

Then, I created the storage pool by selecting the recommended RAID type.

I went with all the defaults and had everything set up within a few minutes.

After the NAS is on your network and you’re connected through the app, you can use it as a simple backup system for folders on the computers on your network.

I tested this by setting the DXP480T Plus to back up the photos on my MacBook. It took a little while for it to copy all the files to the NAS because my MacBook was not directly (Ethernet) connected to the network. It did all the copying via WiFi. But it worked and worked well.

I did the same thing using my iPhone and the UGREEN iOS app. It took quite a while to copy over 11,000 images from my iPhone to the NAS, but it worked fine.

Additional feature through apps

The UGREEN NASync DXP480T Plus NAS device can do more than just back up the files on your phone and computers. You can install a selection of apps that provide extra functionality.

The selection at launch includes the apps you see in the image above. As mentioned, I tested the Sync & Backup app. I also tested the Content Search app, which allows you to search the NAS for files based on file names, and Universal Search app.

There is also a Photos app that you can set up to create albums and search through images based on person, place, and even text found inside the images.

I found that the Photos app can be a bit sluggish, but I attribute that to the fact that this app is still a work in progress and it could be due to it processing all my photos. I’ll update this review if I find this changes with time.

My favorite app so far is the DLNA app, which turns the UGREEN NASync DXP480T Plus NAS device into a media server. You can specify which folders are accessible from other devices. You can also plug an external drive into the back of the DXP480T Plus, and the files on that drive will also be accessible from other devices.

I installed the free video player app Infuse on my AppleTV. It was super simple to set up, and it instantly found the NAS devices on my network and all the video files. It even presents everything in a really nice format with movie posters and details. I don’t want this to turn into a review about Infuse, so let me know if you’d like me to take a look at these types of apps for future reviews.

UGREEN has stated that they plan to have a Music app at some point that will let you use the NAS as a music streaming device.

Performance

I’ve been happy with the performance of the UGREEN NASync DXP480T Plus NAS device after just a couple of days of using it.

99% of the devices on my network are wireless and this NAS still works perfectly. My favorite feature is using the DXP480T as a media server for my AppleTV. I’ve had no issues streaming movies from the DXP480T itself and a USB hard drive attached to it.

What I like about Ugreen NASync DXP480T

• Multiple connection options (web, desktop app, mobile app)
• Multiple apps for extra functionality
• Private cloud storage without monthly fees

What needs to be improved?

• Photos app is slow and freezes

Final thoughts

NAS devices don’t have to be gadgets that only nerds and geeks add to their home network. There’s nothing intimidating about the UGREEN NASync DXP480T Plus NAS device. From the ease of installing M.2 SSDs, connecting it to your network, and expanding its functionality with apps, the UGREEN NASync DXP480T Plus NAS device is a quality NAS that anyone can add to their network for backing up files and more.

Price : $479.99 Early Bird Pricing ($799.99 when it goes to retail) Where to buy : Kickstarter Source : The sample of this product was provided for free by Ugreen . Ugreen did not have a final say on the review and did not preview the review before it was published.

About The Author

Julie Strietelmeier

7 thoughts on “ugreen nasync dxp480t plus review – setup your own private cloud storage”.

• Gadgeteer Comment Policy - Please read before commenting

not very useful…. no specs on the m.2 slots. no test of TB4 through-put. no test of 10Gbe throughput. Feels like a paid advertisement with some lovey pictures.

Sang, I’m sorry that my review lacks the info that you need. I am relatively new to NAS devices. I was not sure how to test the port speed on the NAS itself due to the fact that everything on my network is wireless including the AppleTV, and MacBooks.

May I point out, we don’t do -any- paid advertisement reviews.

Please remember that just one local backup is not the safest way to prevent data loss. It is also advised to do some kind of off-site and encrypted backup, to prevent all your data from being lost in case of a fire, burglary, etc. Periodically creating encrypted backups on an external harddrive and storing it in a friend’s house is a cheap option. Or have a VPN to friends’ house and store your encrypted data on their NAS/server and vice versa. Personally, I have timed scripts on all of my machines to make incremental backups to my local server, which encrypts everything with AES256 and stores it in very affordable cloud storage (5 TB for $50/year).

Where can I get 5TB for $50 /year?

thanks Frank

Hi Julie; This is what I have been looking for in a NAS Device. How much is one – “1T Samsung M.2 SSD sticks” you tested? I have never done anything with Kickstarter but I understand it is a pledge if they meet their funding goal by deadline. Only I don’t understand how that lets me get my hands on one of these units. Good review and the photos are great. Thank you. Dave T.

This isn’t the pro version, but you get the idea: https://www.amazon.com/Technology-Intelligent-Turbowrite-MZ-V8V1T0B-AM/dp/B08V83JZH4/?th=1

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What we know about the container ship that crashed into the Baltimore bridge

• The ship that crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge on Tuesday was the Singapore-flagged Dali.
• The container ship had been chartered by Maersk, the Danish shipping company. 
• Two people were recovered from the water but six remain missing, authorities said.

A container ship crashed into a major bridge in Baltimore early Tuesday, causing its collapse into the Patapsco River.

A livestream showed vehicles traveling on the Francis Scott Key Bridge just moments before the impact at 1:28 a.m. ET.

Baltimore first responders called the situation a "developing mass casualty event" and a "dire emergency," per The Associated Press.

James Wallace, chief of the Baltimore Fire Department, said in a press conference that two people had been recovered from the water.

One was uninjured, but the other was transported to a local trauma center in a "very serious condition."

Wallace said up to 20 people were thought to have fallen into the river and some six people were still missing.

Richard Worley, Baltimore's police chief, said there was "no indication" the collision was purposeful or an act of terrorism.

Wes Moore, the governor of Maryland, declared a state of emergency around 6 a.m. ET. He said his office was in close communication with Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary.

"We are working with an interagency team to quickly deploy federal resources from the Biden Administration," Moore added.

Understanding why the bridge collapsed could have implications for safety, in both the shipping and civil engineering sectors.

The container ship is the Singapore-flagged Dali, which is about 984 feet long, and 157 feet wide, per a listing on VesselFinder.

An unclassified Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency report said that the ship "lost propulsion" as it was leaving port, ABC News reported.

The crew notified officials that they had lost control and warned of a possible collision, the report said, per the outlet.

The Dali's owner is listed as Grace Ocean, a Singapore-based firm, and its manager is listed as Synergy Marine, which is also headquartered in Singapore.

Shipping news outlet TradeWinds reported that Grace Ocean confirmed the Dali was involved in the collapse, but is still determining what caused the crash.

Related stories

Staff for Grace Ocean declined to comment on the collision when contacted by Business Insider.

"All crew members, including the two pilots have been accounted for and there are no reports of any injuries. There has also been no pollution," Synergy Marine said in a statement.

The company did not respond to a request for further comment from BI.

'Horrified'

Maersk chartered the Dali, with a schedule for the ship on its website.

"We are horrified by what has happened in Baltimore, and our thoughts are with all of those affected," the Danish shipping company said in a statement.

Maersk added: "We are closely following the investigations conducted by authorities and Synergy, and we will do our utmost to keep our customers informed."

Per ship tracking data, the Dali left Baltimore on its way to Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, at around 1 a.m., about half an hour before the crash.

The Port of Baltimore is thought to be the largest in the US for roll-on/roll-off ships carrying trucks and trailers.

Barbara Rossi, associate professor of engineering science at the University of Oxford, told BI the force of the impact on one of the bridge's supporting structures "must have been immense" to lead to the collapse.

Dr Salvatore Mercogliano, a shipping analyst and maritime historian at Campbell University, told BI: "It appears Dali left the channel while outbound. She would have been under the control of the ship's master with a Chesapeake Bay pilot onboard to advise the master.

"The deviation out of the channel is probably due to a mechanical issue as the ship had just departed the port, but you cannot rule out human error as that was the cause of the Ever Forward in 2022 just outside of Baltimore."

He was referring to the incident two years ago when the container ship became grounded for a month in Chesapeake Bay after loading up cargo at the Port of Baltimore.

The US Coast Guard found the incident was caused by pilot error, cellphone use, and "inadequate bridge resource management."

Claudia Norrgren, from the maritime research firm Veson Nautical, told BI: "The industry bodies who are here to protect against incidents like this, such as the vessel's flag state, classification society, and regulatory bodies, will step in and conduct a formal investigation into the incident. Until then, it'll be very hard for anyone to truly know what happened on board."

This may not have been the first time the Dali hit a structure.

In 2016, maritime blogs such as Shipwreck Log and ship-tracking site VesselFinder posted videos of what appears to be the stern of the same, blue-hulled container vessel scraping against a quay in Antwerp.

A representative for the Port of Antwerp told BI the Dali did collide with a quay there eight years ago but couldn't "give any information about the cause of the accident."

The Dali is listed as being built in 2015 by Hyundai Heavy Industries in South Korea.

Watch: The shipwreck at the center of a battle between China and the Philippines

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