How to Make Your Facebook Account Private

If you have a public Facebook profile, others can look at your shared photos, videos, and other status updates. While some wouldn’t mind strangers peeking into their profile, others like to keep things private. So if you are someone like this and don’t want unknown users to snoop on your profile, then read this guide to learn all the ways you can make your Facebook profile private.

Table of Contents

Method 1: Make Your Facebook Account Private

Facebook does not have a private account option like Instagram. However, the platform does provide privacy options so only people in your existing friends list can view your posts and stories. This can be done by enabling the profile locking option. This is how you can do it on the Facebook app and website.

On Phone

1. Open Facebook app, and tap on the hamburger menu at the top or bottom right.
2. Go to Settings & privacy > Settings.
3. Scroll down to Audience and Visibility and tap on Profile locking.
4. Here, tap on Lock your profile > OK.

On PC

1. Open Facebook website using your desktop browser.
2. On the home feed, click on your name from the left sidebar.
3. Here, click on the 3-dots icon.
4. Click on Lock profile > Lock your profile to confirm your selection.

Method 2: Hide Sensitive Information on Facebook

If you wish to hide your sensitive information like your phone number, date of birth, or other details from even your friends and wish to make your account as private as possible then you do so from the Privacy Checkup page. Let’s take a look at how it works on the Facebook app and website.

On Phone

1. Tap on the hamburger menu in the top right or left side of the Facebook app.
2. Go to Settings & privacy > Settings.
3. Select Privacy checkup under “Tools and resources”.
4. Here, choose Who can see what you share.
5. Tap on Continue to move on to the next page.
6. Now, tap the drop-down menu next to each category and pick between the Public, Friends, and Only me. We recommend selecting “Only me” if you wish to keep your information private to you.

On PC

1. Head over to the Facebook website and log into your account.
2. Now click on the profile icon at the top right.
3. Go to Settings & Privacy > Privacy Checkup.
4. Here, select Who can see what you share.
5. Click on Continue.
6. Now you can choose the audience for each category by clicking on the drop-down menu.

You can pick between Public, Friends, Specific Friends (selected users that you allow), Friends except… or Only me.

From here, you can manage which information others can see and which details they can’t. You can change it anytime you want to by visiting this same section.

Method 3: Make Your Facebook Profile Unsearchable

Let’s say you are too keen on your privacy or just don’t like others to find out about your profile at all, then you can change a single setting that will make your profile disappear. It will prevent search engines like Google from linking to your account. This is how you can turn your profile invisible on the app and desktop.

On Phone

1. Tap on the hamburger menu and go to Settings & privacy.
2. Now, navigate to Settings > Audience and visibility > How people find and contact you.
3. Turn off the Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile? toggle.

On PC

1. Visit Facebook and click on your profile icon at the top right.
2. Go to Settings & privacy > Settings.
3. From the left sidebar, select How can people find and contact you.
4. Here, you can turn off the Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile? toggle.

Method 4: Make Your Facebook Friends List Private

Sometimes people will contact your Facebook friends in order to reach out to you. This is quite likely to happen with celebrities and popular figures. However, you can avoid that by hiding your friends list from others so they won’t know whom you are friends with on the app. Let’s take a look at how you can hide your friends.

On Phone

1. Tap on the hamburger menu then tap on Settings & privacy.
2. Select Settings > Audience and visibility.
3. Here, tap on How people find and contact you.
4. Tap on Who can see your friends list?
5. From the popup menu, choose your preferred audience.

On PC

1. On Facebook, click on your profile icon at top right.
2. Now click on Settings & privacy > Settings.
3. From the sidebar, click on How can people find and contact you.
4. The, select Who can see your friends list?
5. Pick your preferred privacy option.

Method 5: Hide Your Online Status on Facebook

If you have a clingy friend or someone who starts texting or annoying you as soon as you come online on Facebook then you would want to disable your active status on the app. Here is how you can do it.

On Phone

1. To start, tap the hamburger menu in the upper or lower right corner.
2. Navigate to Settings & privacy > Settings.
3. Here, tap on Active Status under “Audience and Visibility”.
4. Turn off the Show when you’re active toggle.
5. In the confirmation pop-up, tap on Turn Off.

On PC

1. Open Facebook on your browser and click on the Messenger icon.
2. Here, click on the 3-dots icon.
3. Click on Active Status and turn off its toggle on the next page.
4. Lastly, click on Save to apply changes.

Method 6: Make Facebook Comments Private

People have diverse opinions, so when you share a post about your fitness journey, some may appreciate your efforts. At the same time, others will just spam mean comments for no good reason. The good thing is that you can hide such comments on Facebook. Let’s see how.

1. Open the Facebook post for which you want to hide comments.
2. Open the comments section.
3. Long-press on to the comment and select Hide comment.

Now the comment won’t be visible to other people viewing and commenting on the post.

Method 7: Hide Your Post Likes

Facebook also lets you hide the likes and reaction counts on your posts, so others can’t see and tell how much engagement your post has received. Follow these steps to make likes private on the Facebook mobile app and website.

On Phone

1. Inside Facebook, navigate to the hamburger menu > Settings & privacy > Settings.
2. Here, tap on Reaction preferences.
3. Turn on the toggle On your posts toggle.

On PC

1. On the website, click on the profile icon.
2. Then head over to Settings & privacy > Settings.
3. Click on Reaction preferences and turn on the On your posts toggle.

This is how you can private your Facebook profile and its contents and limit your sharing with other users. From its initial days, Facebook has increased user privacy, which was necessary as many people didn’t like that others could see what they were sharing even if they were not on their friends list.

Switching to these settings will help you feel more comfortable when sharing on Facebook. In case you have any queries related to this article, then do reach out to us in the comments below.