I Use These 7 Easy Methods to Make My Facebook Profile More Private

Summary

• Restricting the visibility of your Facebook posts, stories, and Reels to friends only is an excellent way to limit exposure to strangers and prying eyes.
• Keeping your profile details, such as work, education, and relationship status, visible only to Facebook friends can also help maintain your privacy.
• Facebook's Privacy Checkup tool makes it easy to manage all your profile visibility and discoverability settings from one place.

While Facebook is fun, there's always the concern about who might be viewing my posts or accessing my profile details. Fortunately, by implementing the following strategies, I've been able to significantly enhance my Facebook privacy while still enjoying the platform's benefits.

1 Restricting Post Visibility to Friends Only

One way I keep my Facebook profile private is by restricting the visibility of my posts to friends only. This means that only people on my friends list can see my posts, stories, and Reels. This simple change helps limit exposure to strangers and potential prying eyes.

To limit the visibility of Facebook photos, stories, and Reels:

1. Open Facebook in your web browser, click the profile icon in the top right corner, and select Settings & privacy > Settings.
2. Go to the Audience and visibility section in the left pane and select Posts.
3. Click the button next to “Who can see your future posts” and select Friends.
4. To change the visibility of your existing Facebook posts to friends only, click the Limit Past Posts button.
5. Similarly, you can change the post visibility of your stories and Reels as well.

2 Limiting Who Can See Personal Details

By default, Facebook shows basic profile details, such as your birthday, education, and relationship status, to everyone on the platform. However, I prefer to make those details visible only to my Facebook friends so that my personal information stays private. Here's how you can do the same.

1. Open Facebook, click your profile icon in the top right corner, and click on your name.
2. Go to the About tab.
3. On the left, you’ll see several sections, such as Overview, Places lived, Life events, and more.
4. Go to the information you want to hide, click the three-dot menu next to it, and select Edit.
5. Click the Public button, change the visibility to Friends, and hit Save. Repeat this process for all the personal details you want to hide.

3 Keeping My Friends List Private

Facebook also makes my friends list visible to everyone by default, meaning anyone can view my friends list even if I've not connected with them. To avoid this, I prefer to hide my Facebook friends list, giving me more control over who can see my connections.

If you want to do the same, follow these steps:

1. Open Facebook, click the profile icon in the top right corner, and select Settings & privacy > Settings.
2. In the left pane, go to the Audience and visibility section and select How people find and contact you.
3. Click the Friends or Public button next to “Who can see your friends list” and choose Only me.
4. Click Done to save changes.

4 Hiding What I Follow on Facebook

To keep my Facebook activity more private, I've chosen to hide the people, pages, and lists I follow. This ensures that my interests and connections aren't visible to just anyone. By limiting this information, I can keep my personal interests and social activity discreet. Here’s how you can do the same.

1. Go to the Settings & privacy menu on Facebook.
2. Select the Followers and public content tab on your left.
3. Click the Public button next to “Who can see the people, Pages and lists you follow,” select Friends, and hit Save.

5 Preventing Profile Discovery via Phone Number, Email, or Search Engine

I have taken steps to safeguard my privacy by preventing others from discovering my Facebook profile through my phone number and email. I have also opted out of search engine linking, ensuring that my profile does not show up in Google search results. These simple changes make it harder for anyone to find me without my consent.

To make your Facebook profile unsearchable via phone number, email, or search engine:

1. Go to the Settings & privacy menu on Facebook.
2. In the left pane, go to the Audience and visibility section and click How people find and contact you.
3. On your right, click the Possible connections button next to “People with your email address.”
4. Select No one and click Done.
5. Turn off the toggle next to "Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile."

6 Setting My Activity Status to Off

Even though I use Facebook occasionally for chatting, I've turned off my activity status. This gives me more control over my online presence, allowing me to browse or message without feeling like I'm constantly being watched.

If you want to do the same, click the Messenger icon at the top. Then, click the three-dot menu and select the Activity Status from the list. On the following window, turn off the toggle next to Activity Status and hit Save. Alternatively, you can also choose to keep your Activity Status on or off for specific people from this menu.

7 Regularly Using Facebook’s Privacy Checkup Tool

Modifying each Facebook privacy setting individually can be tedious. Fortunately, Facebook offers a Privacy Checkup tool that streamlines the process by allowing me to review and manage all my privacy settings from a single location.

The tool even allows me to set up reminders to use it on a weekly, monthly, biannual, or annual basis, ensuring I never miss a privacy checkup. Here's how you can access it.

1. Open Facebook, click the profile icon in the top right corner, and select Settings privacy > Privacy Checkup.
2. Click on Who can see what you share and follow the prompts to set your profile information, posts, and tagged photos to be visible only to friends.
3. Similarly, click on How people can find you to block friend requests from strangers and make your profile unsearchable via phone number, email, and search engines.
4. To configure Facebook to remind you about these privacy checks, click the three-dot icon, and select Set up reminders.
5. Select one of the following options and hit Save: Every week, Every month, Every 6 months, or Every year.

There you have it! With just a few tweaks, I can easily control who sees my information and how they interact with me on the platform. While I've covered the steps for Facebook's desktop version, finding these options on the Android or iOS app is just as straightforward.