How To Change Privacy Settings on Facebook

What are Facebook privacy settings?

The privacy settings on Facebook give you a degree of control over who is able to view and interact with different types of content you post on Facebook. This includes your profile information, posts you create, posts that other people tag you in, and posts you create as part of Groups.

They also give you ways to limit how people can find your Facebook profile and send you friend requests. You can also limit who’s able to follow you or see who (or what) you have followed. Finally, you can outright block users, Pages, and even apps on Facebook from viewing or interacting with your content, sending invitations or friend requests, and messaging or calling you.

Where are privacy settings on Facebook?

“All of those settings sound useful, but how do I check my privacy settings on Facebook?” you may ask. Well, you can find the bulk of them by following these instructions:

How to change privacy settings on Facebook: for all aspects of your profile

The majority of your privacy settings on Facebook fall under one of eight subsections in the “Audience and Visibility” section. The tables below outline each subsection, and describe what the settings within each subsection allow you to modify.

Profile details

Here you can change, add, or remove information to your profile, including:

You can also change the audience for most of these pieces of information to control who sees them.

How people find and contact you

Posts

Stories

Reels

Followers and public content

Profile and tagging

Blocking

What are the default privacy settings on Facebook?

As of May 2014, all new Facebook accounts have their post privacy settings set to Friends by default. Previously, the default privacy setting for Facebook posts was Public. That meant, unless you changed your privacy settings, anyone on (or even off) Facebook could see what you posted.

It also used to be that changing the audience setting of a new Facebook post you created would change your default posting privacy settings going forward. This feature has also been changed so that choosing a different audience for a new post doesn’t affect your default post audience settings.

However, there are some other key default privacy settings on Facebook you may want to know about. One is that general Internet search engines – such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo – are, by default, allowed to index your profile and display it as a search result. This means anyone who knows your name (or certain other pieces of information about you) can type it into a search engine and find your Facebook profile. And they will be able to see any content on your profile that’s public (either because Facebook mandatorily makes it public, or because you choose for it to be that way), even if they aren’t a registered Facebook user.

Another is that companies that advertise on Facebook, are, by default, allowed to share data on how you interact with them – both online and offline – with Facebook. And Facebook is allowed to use this data to decide which advertisements to show you – both on Facebook and elsewhere online. Some people find this useful, but others find it so accurate that it’s disturbing. If you fall into the latter camp, you should take a look at these settings.

We’ll go over some of these settings in our recommended privacy settings section.

How to reset privacy settings on Facebook

There is no quick and easy way to reset your privacy settings on Facebook. Practically speaking, the only way to do it is by creating a new Facebook account.

However, Facebook has a feature called “Privacy Checkup” that allows you to adjust your key privacy settings in a simple and non-overwhelming way. To access it:

6 recommended Facebook privacy settings to enhance your profile

If you’re looking to use Facebook to just connect with friends and family, without all the strangers and eerily relevant ads bothering you, here are some of the best privacy settings for Facebook you should set.

1. Activity information from ad partners

This setting can be found in the “Ad Preferences” section of the Meta Accounts Center. Basically, it allows Facebook to use data that businesses advertising on Facebook collect about you – both online and offline – in order to serve you more relevant ads. If you find the accuracy to be more creepy than helpful, you can turn this setting off by selecting it and then choosing No, don’t make my ads more relevant by using this information.

2. Off-Facebook activity

If you want to go a step further, you can actually block businesses that advertise on Facebook from sharing information about your interactions with them with Facebook.

To do this, go to the “Your Information and Permissions” section of the Meta Accounts Center and click Your Activity Off Meta Technologies. Here, you can Disconnect Specific Activity to block certain businesses from sharing information about you with Facebook, or Clear Previous Activity to block all businesses currently sharing information about you with Meta through all of its products (including Facebook and Instagram).

You can also click Manage Future Activity and choose Disconnect Future Activity to stop businesses from sharing information about you with Facebook from now on. As a bonus, this will also block businesses currently sharing information about you with Facebook.

3. Default audience settings

Under the “Tools and Resources” section of the Settings and Privacy dashboard, you can find an option to set the default audience for your future (and some of your present) Facebook content. This includes your posts, stories, reels, profile information, and list of things you follow. You can set it to Public or Friends, or choose Custom and set the privacy of each option individually. This is a quick way to change the privacy of a lot of your Facebook content all at once.

4. Tag reviewing and visibility

Under the “Profile and Tagging” subsection of the Settings and Privacy dashboard, check out the “Reviewing” and “Tagging” categories.

The “Reviewing” category allows you to decide if you want to review tags people add to your posts before those tags are published on Facebook. It also allows you to decide if you want to review posts you’re tagged in before they appear on your profile. These settings let you restrict the users and Pages tagged in your content to people you know and trust, and stop people from seeing posts on your profile that you don’t necessarily want to be tagged in. (They may still be able to see these posts elsewhere, though.)

The “Tagging” category lets you control who can see posts you’re tagged in on your profile, as well as who can see posts you’re tagged in if they wouldn’t otherwise be able to. You can change the audiences for these settings to more private options (such as Friends or Only Me) if you don’t want people you don’t necessarily know to see posts you’re tagged in.

5. Limiting past post visibility

If you’ve been using Facebook for a while, chances are you might have some posts you created in the past that made sense to make at the time. However, they may not be things you would consider appropriate for your new connections to see. If so, go to the “Posts” subsection of your settings and click Limit Past Posts.

Once you confirm this, all previous posts on your profile that have an audience of Public or Friends of Friends will have their audience set to Friends. Note, however, that this doesn’t change the default audience setting for any future posts you make.

6. Profile searchability

Facebook is supposed to be about connecting and staying in touch with people you know. However, there are a bunch of settings that can allow relative strangers to find you on Facebook if they happen to know one of your friends, your email address, your phone number, or even just your name.

If you’re not okay with that, go to the “How People Find and Contact You” subsection of your settings. Here, you can control who is able to send you friend requests or view your friends list. You can also decide to whom Facebook can suggest you as “People You May Know” if someone has your email address or phone number in their contact list.

Finally, you can decide whether or not search engines outside of Facebook can link to your profile. Though turning this setting to Off doesn’t stop people from looking you up with Facebook’s internal search engine, it does prevent people from finding your profile by typing your contact details into a general search engine like Google or Bing.

Important Facebook settings and privacy FAQs

Here are a few other things that people commonly ask about regarding privacy settings on Facebook.

1. I can’t change my privacy settings on Facebook. Why?

There are some situations on Facebook where you’re unable to change privacy settings. These include:

You should always be able to change the audience of any post you create on Facebook, at any time. If you aren’t, or you think other privacy settings you’ve configured on Facebook aren’t working correctly, you should report it to Facebook.

2. Why do my privacy settings on Facebook keep changing?

Some people have noticed their privacy settings on Facebook change without them having done anything. There are two common explanations for this.

One is that Facebook occasionally updates its available privacy settings (i.e. adds new ones and/or removes others), its privacy policy, or its entire user interface. In these circumstances, it’s alleged that Facebook may sometimes reset privacy options as it implements new defaults.

The other is that your account may have been used without your permission. If there is other evidence that this is a possibility – like other information on your account has changed, or you’ve performed actions on your account that you don’t remember personally doing – you should take steps to secure your account.

3. Can you bypass Facebook privacy settings?

There are a handful of ways to bypass some of the privacy settings on someone’s Facebook account, but most are unethical at best and illegal at worst. Examples include:

Some of these carry the risk of getting kicked off Facebook, or even being charged with a crime, for violating its privacy policy. However, people sometimes attempt them anyway. So it’s important to know about them, and to occasionally adjust your privacy settings to avoid your account becoming vulnerable to these loopholes. You should also be on guard against phishing scams designed to illegitimately gain access to your accounts and information.

4. What does the “Only Me” privacy setting on Facebook mean?

The “Only Me” audience option allows you to post some kinds of information and content on Facebook, but not make them visible to anyone besides you. That includes posts you add to your timeline; if the audience is set to “Only Me”, those posts won’t appear on your friends’ timelines. Posts that you tag someone or something in – whether they’re your friend or not – also won’t show up on their timeline if the audience is set to “Only Me”.

5. What does “Custom” mean on Facebook privacy settings?

The “Custom” audience option allows you to fine-tune who you share information and content with on Facebook. You can choose to share things with specific people, lists of friends, or groups. You can also choose to block specific people from seeing what you share.

We hope this in-depth guide helps you preserve at least some of your privacy when using Facebook. Also be sure to check out our guides on how to use Facebook for more tips on how to use the popular social networking site effectively.