How to make your Facebook profile private

We share so much information on Facebook—including information on our birthday, interests and closest friends. Though it might not bother you to share some of this information with the public, you might choose to withhold some of it as well, such as the year you were born.

Read below to find out how to make your Facebook profile private, how to make a friend’s list private on Facebook, and how to make albums private on Facebook.

Changing your Facebook privacy settings

Step 1: Log into your Facebook account

Search Facebook in your browser bar. Then enter the appropriate account information to log into your Facebook. If you forget your password, click on the forgot password button so Facebook can send a temporary password to your email account.

Step 2: Click on the Arrow in the top right corner of your feed

Once you’ve navigated yourself to your news feed, select the downward pointing arrow in the top right-hand corner of your screen. The arrow will open a drop down that will lead you to group options, advertising information, your activity log, news feed preferences, settings and a log out option. From here, select the Settings button.

Step 3: Click on the privacy tab in the left-hand column

The settings tab will take you to a general account settings page. In the long left-hand column under general settings, select the Privacy tab. This should be the fourth option in the column. When you click the privacy tab it will launch a new page on the right-hand side of your page with information about your name, username, contact information, and other details.

Step 4: Scroll down to the “Your Activity” section

After navigating to your Privacy tab, scroll down to the “Your Activity” section. This should be the second section located under the “Privacy Settings and Tools” header. 

Here you will be able to edit who has access to your account profile. If you’d like your profile to be completely private, select the “Only me” option in the drop down. If you’d like to limit your profile privacy to only friends, select that option instead.

Step 5: Review other privacy settings

Under the privacy tab, you have access to change who is allowed to send you friend requests, who can search you based on your Facebook email address, who can search you based on your phone number, whether or not your Facebook profile can be tagged in search engines and a variety of other settings. To make sure your Facebook privacy is completely optimized to your liking, review all of the privacy options on this page.

Reviewing the “Timeline and Tagging” tab in the left-hand column will also allow further privatization of your Facebook page. Here you can select who has access to post content on your timeline, who can share your Facebook stories on their profiles, who has access to tagged posts on your timeline, and a number of other settings.

How to make a Friend’s List private on Facebook

Step 1: Navigate to the Privacy tab under Settings

At this point, you should be familiar with the Privacy tab under Settings. If not, follow the instructions below, or review steps 1–3 in the “How to make your Facebook profile private” section above to find the privacy tab.

1. While on your news feed, click on the arrow in the top right-hand corner of your screen.
2. Select the Settings option, which should be the fifth selection on the drop-down menu.
3. Scroll over to the left-hand column and select the Privacy tab. This should be the fourth option from the top. The screenshot below shows what your privacy page should look like.

Step 2: Scroll down to the “How People Find and Contact You” section of the Privacy page

Once here, select the Edit button next to the prompt, “Who can see your friends list?” The general Facebook settings are usually set to “public.”

Step 3: Select “friends,” “specific friends” or “only me” to make your friends list private

If you want your friends list to be completely private, select the “Only me” option under the drop-down menu. If you want to share your Friends list with only your friends, or specific friends, select the appropriate option from the drop-down menu.

You can also exclude specific friends from viewing your friends list, if necessary or desired.

Step 4: Alternatively, navigate to your Facebook profile page

Step 5: Click on the Friends tab beneath your cover photo and name

Step 6: Select the pen box in the right hand corner

After selecting the pen button, click on the “Edit Privacy” button in the dropdown menu.

Step 7: Edit your friends list preferences in the popup menu

The same options for privatizing your Friends list will pop up here as shown in the first way to edit your friends list settings. 

How to make Albums private on Facebook

Step 1: Go to the album of photos you’d like to edit

Navigate to the photos tab on your profile page. From there, select the Albums tab underneath the photo header. Click on the album of interest.

Step 2: Select the three dots in the corner of your selected album

Step 3: Select what audience you want to have viewing privileges

If you want the album to be completely private, select the “only me” option. Narrow it down to “Friends” or “Friends except...” if you only want certain people to view the album. Make sure to save the changes after selecting your preferred privacy setting.

How to hide your birthday on Facebook

Step 1: Navigate to your Facebook profile and select “edit profile.”

Selecting the edit profile button will allow you to edit specific information that shows up on your profile.

Step 2: Scroll down to the “about info” section of the popup

After clicking on the Edit Profile button, a popup will show up in the middle of your screen. Scroll down to the bottom of the popup and select the “Edit your about info” tab in the last section of the popup.

Step 3: Navigate to the “Contact and Basic Info” tab

An about section will appear on your screen. In the left-hand column, select the “Contact and Basic Info” tab that shows up. Under the “Basic Information" section, select the Edit button that pops up next to your birth date and year.

Step 4: Select your desired privacy settings

Click on the drop-down buttons supplied on the right-hand side of your screen to determine who can see your birthday information. If you’d like to share your birthday with friends, but hide the year you were born from others, you can edit that as well.

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