Are unknown users creeping up on you on Facebook? You can prevent that from happening by taking your account on the social networking platform private. Facebook allows users to hide their accounts from those whom they don’t know or certain people from their contact list. Making your Facebook account private will not show your profile information such as contact details, date of birth, and relationship status, as well as posts and stories to others. There are as many as four privacy options, namely Friends, Friends except…, Specific friends, and Only Me. Here’s what each option does and how you can use them to make Facebook private on Android, iOS, and laptop/ PC.
Facebook privacy options
There are no privacy options enabled on the Facebook account by default. This means that all your information will be available to the public for anyone to see. However, it can be changed to any of the privacy options mentioned below:
- Friends: With this option, only your Facebook friends will be able to see what you post
- Friends Except: If you want to hide your posts from some toxic friends, you can use this option. Select the friends that you want to hide your posts from and tap ok
- Specific Friends: Only the specific list of friends that you choose will be able to see the posts, not your entire Facebook friends list
- Only Me: This means that except you, nobody else can see the post
How to make your Facebook private on Android mobile/iPhone
Facebook has fragmented the entire privacy section, and now you can turn off exactly what content you want to be seen by whom on your feed. First, let’s go with the Privacy Checkup options:
- Open the Facebook app on your phone
- Tap on the hamburger menu. Depending on your phone, it will be on the top right or the bottom right of your screen.
- Now tap on Privacy Checkup (If you can’t see it, search for it on the search bar above)
- Now you can control most aspects of your account from here
- Tap on ‘Who can see What You Share’, and tap ‘Continue’
- From here on you can select with whom you want to share your phone number, email, birthday, address, education info and friends list
- Tap on the dropdown options to the right and choose the privacy setting that best fits your needs. Then, tap ‘Next‘ at the bottom.
- Now, tap the dropdown options to the right to select who can see the content you post. (You can also select ‘Limit’ to change the privacy settings on previous posts) and tap Next
- Lastly, you can block other users who are annoying you with spam messages and posts.
With Privacy Checkup, the majority of the things are sorted out, but if you want even more privacy for your account, the following steps allow you to make things other than your posts and contact information private:
- Open the Facebook app
- Tap on the hamburger menu. Depending on your phone, it will be on the top right or the bottom right of your screen.
- Scroll down and tap ‘Settings and Privacy’
- Tap on the ‘Settings’ tab.
- Under the ‘Audience and visibility’ section, click on the various options on the right updating each one. For example, if you click on ‘Edit’ near the contact information, you can choose what other people see.
- If you want to make your posts private, tap on ‘Posts’. Similarly, you can set various other parameters as per your needs.
How to make Facebook account private on laptop/ PC
You can also make your Facebook account private on your laptop/PC. Here’s how to do it:
- Go to the Facebook.com website via any browser, and log in with your account
- Now click/tap on your profile photo on the top right corner
- Click/tap on ‘Settings and Privacy’
- Now Click/tap on ‘Privacy Checkup’
- Now you can control most aspects of your account from here
- Click/tap on ‘Who can see What You Share’, and tap ‘Continue’
- From here on you can select with whom you want to share your phone number, email, birthday, address, education info and friends list
- Click/tap on the bubble options to the right and choose the privacy setting that best fits your needs. Then, tap ‘Next‘ at the bottom.
- Now, Click/tap the bubble options to the right to select who can see the content you post. (You can also select ‘Limit’ to change the privacy settings on previous posts) and click Next
- Lastly, you can block other users who are annoying you with spam messages and posts.
With Privacy Checkup, majority of the things are sorted out, but if you want even more privacy for your account, do the following:
- Go to the Facebook.com website via any browser, and log in with your account
- Now click/tap on your profile photo on the top right corner
- Click/tap on ‘Settings and Privacy’
- Now Click/tap on ‘Settings’
- Now on the left pane, scroll down and click/tap ‘privacy’
- Now on the center, you can now control various aspects of your account on your activity, how people can find and contact you, and how you get message requests.
FAQs
How to tell if Facebook profile is private
It is pretty easy to find out if your profile is private. Just call up any of your friends and ask them if they can see anything on searching for you. Your profile should have a padlock saying this profile is private.
How to make Facebook page private
It is pretty easy to make your page private:
- Go to the Facebook.com website via any browser, and log in with your account
- Now click/tap on the menu and tap on ‘Pages’
- Now tap on your page
- On the left side, scroll down and click/tap ‘Settings’
- Now on the right side, at the top, click/tap on edit near ‘page visibility’
- Now select ‘page unpublished’ and click/tap save changes
- Now your page will be private, and will be accessible only to you and the person who has a role on this page
How to make photos private on Facebook
Here’s how you can make your photos private on Facebook:
- On your smartphone, open the Facebook app
- Now tap on your profile and scroll down until you see photos under posts section
- Now swipe to uploads and select the photo you want it to be hidden
- Now on the top right of the image, tap on the three-dot menu
- Now tap on Edit privacy
- Now you can set the post to be seen in public, or by only you.
For all the latest Technology News Click Here
For the latest news and updates, follow us on Google News.