Facebook Privacy Settings: A Plain-English Walkthrough

Facebook shows your posts, photos, and profile details to a wider audience than most people expect, but a handful of settings put you back in control. Every one of the changes below is free, takes a few taps, and can be undone later, so there is nothing to worry about breaking. The instructions cover both the Facebook app on a phone or tablet and the website on a computer, because the two look slightly different.

Set aside about twenty minutes the first time. After that, you only need to glance at these settings now and then, usually after Facebook updates its app and shuffles a few buttons around.

Where the privacy controls live

On the phone app, tap the icon that looks like three short horizontal lines (the menu) at the bottom right on an iPhone, or top right on an Android phone. Scroll down and tap Settings & privacy, then tap Settings. Almost everything in this article lives under the Audience and visibility heading on that Settings page.

On a computer, click the small downward arrow in the very top right corner of the screen, then click Settings & privacy, then Settings. A menu appears down the left side. The Privacy and Profile and tagging links there hold the same options.

Choose who sees your posts by default

The most useful single change is your default audience, which decides who can see a new post when you don't pick anything yourself. On the Settings page, open Audience and visibility, then tap Posts. Look for Who can see your future posts and set it to Friends. That means only people you have accepted as friends will see what you share from now on.

The default is often set to Public, which means anyone on the internet can read your posts, even people without a Facebook account. Switching to Friends does not delete anything and does not tell anyone you changed it. You can still choose Public for a single post later, such as a notice about a lost pet, by tapping the small audience button just under your name before you hit Post.

On the same screen you may see Limit who can see past posts. Tapping this changes every old public post to friends-only in one go. It is a quick way to tidy up years of older posts without scrolling through them one by one.

Control who can find you and send requests

Open How people find and contact you from the Settings page. The first option, Who can send you friend requests, is usually set to Everyone. Changing it to Friends of friends sharply cuts down on requests from strangers and fake accounts, while still letting genuine acquaintances reach you.

Two more options here matter for safety. Who can look you up using the email address you provided and the same option for your phone number both default to a wide setting. Set each to Friends so a stranger who happens to have your email or number cannot pull up your profile. There is also a setting for whether search engines outside Facebook can link to your profile; turning that off keeps your page from appearing in a Google search.

Manage tags and your timeline

Tagging is when someone links your name to a photo or post, which can then appear on your own profile. To stay in charge of this, open Profile and tagging. Turn on Review posts you're tagged in before the post appears on your profile. Now nothing tagged with your name shows up on your page until you approve it.

Also turn on Review tags people add to your posts. Together these two switches mean you see and approve anything that ties your name to a photo or post. If a relative tags you in an unflattering holiday photo, you simply decline and it never reaches your profile, though it may still sit on theirs.

Lower on the same screen, Who can post on your profile can be set to Only me if you would rather nobody write directly on your timeline. This is a matter of taste, not safety, so pick whatever feels comfortable.

Check what your profile shows the public

Your profile picture and cover photo are always public, and so is your name. Everything else, such as your hometown, birthday, workplace, and relationship status, has its own audience setting. To review them, go to your profile, tap Edit profile, and look at the small audience icon next to each detail. A globe icon means public; two people means friends.

Your full date of birth and your phone number are worth hiding from the public, because they are exactly the details used to impersonate people or guess passwords. Tap each one and set it to Friends or Only me. Showing the day and month of your birthday but hiding the year is a sensible middle ground if you still want birthday wishes.

Turn on extra account security

Privacy settings decide who sees your information, but account security decides who can get into your account in the first place. The strongest single step is two-factor authentication, which asks for a one-time code in addition to your password when someone tries to log in from a new device.

Find it under Settings, then Password and security (sometimes shown as Security and login), then Two-factor authentication. The simplest method sends the code as a text message to your phone. With it switched on, even a thief who learns your password still cannot get in, because they do not have your phone. While you are there, set up Login alerts so Facebook emails you whenever your account is opened on a device it does not recognise.

Once you have made these changes, keeping things tidy is easy. Every few months, open your own profile and view it as a stranger would by tapping the three dots near your cover photo and choosing View As. Anything you would rather a stranger not see can then be locked down.

Be cautious about quiz apps and games that ask to connect to your Facebook account, because they often request access to your friend list and personal details. Under Settings, the Apps and websites section lists everything you have ever connected, and you can remove anything you no longer use with a single tap. Trimming that list now and then is one of the quietest ways to protect your information.

Stories, location targeting, and adverts

A Story is a photo or short video that sits at the top of the app and disappears after twenty-four hours. It has its own audience setting, separate from your normal posts. To set it, tap your Story, look for the three dots or the small audience icon, and choose Friends. Many people set their posts to Friends but forget the Story, which can quietly stay on Public.

Location is worth a moment too. Facebook can tag the exact place where you took a photo or wrote a post, which tells strangers when your home is empty. On your phone, go to your phone's own Settings, find Facebook in the app list, tap Location, and set it to While Using or Never. You can still check in to a restaurant on purpose when you want to; this only stops the automatic, silent tagging.

Adverts on Facebook are chosen using details it has gathered about you, but you can narrow that down. Under Settings, look for Ad preferences. There you can switch off the use of your relationship status, employer, and other categories for targeting. It will not remove adverts altogether, since they pay for the free service, but it makes them less oddly specific.