Facebook Privacy Settings Checklist: What to Change Right Now
Facebook can be useful for keeping up with family, local groups, events, and marketplace listings. But it also collects a huge amount of personal information and encourages sharing by default. If you have not reviewed your account in a while, your profile may be more public than you realize.
This practical facebook privacy settings checklist walks you through the most important settings to change right now. The goal is simple: reduce what strangers, advertisers, data brokers, and even Facebook itself can learn from your activity.
If you want a broader privacy reset beyond Facebook, start with our guide on how to stop companies tracking you online and our walkthrough on what does Google know about you.
1. Change Who Can See Your Future Posts
This is one of the most important settings in any Facebook privacy settings checklist because it controls your default sharing audience.
Go to your privacy settings and look for the option that controls who can see your future posts. In most cases, the safest practical setting is:
- Friends
Avoid leaving this on Public unless you intentionally use Facebook as a public creator profile.
Why this matters
If your future posts are public, anyone can potentially see personal updates, family photos, travel plans, or other details that help scammers build a profile of you.
What you should do
Switch future posts to Friends. If you occasionally want something public, change the audience for that one post instead of making public sharing your default.
2. Limit the Audience for Old Posts
Many people tightened their habits years after joining Facebook, but their older posts may still be public.
Facebook usually offers a setting to limit the audience of past public posts and posts shared with friends of friends.
Why this matters
Your old updates may include:
- birthdays
- schools
- relationship history
- travel photos
- family names
- workplace details
That kind of information is useful for account recovery fraud, impersonation, and social engineering.
What you should do
Use the “limit past posts” option if it fits your situation. Then spot-check your timeline to make sure older content is not still visible beyond your comfort level.
3. Review Your Profile Details
Your About section often reveals more than your actual posts.
Check the visibility of:
- phone number
- email address
- birth date
- hometown
- current city
- workplace
- education
- relationship status
- family members
For most people, these should be visible only to Friends or Only Me.
Why this matters
A public phone number or email address can increase spam, scam attempts, and unwanted contact. Birthdays, school names, and family relationships are especially useful to identity thieves.
What you should do
Make sensitive profile fields as private as possible. If you do not need a field filled out, consider deleting it entirely.
4. Control Who Can Find You Using Your Contact Info
Facebook lets people search for your profile using your phone number or email address unless you restrict it.
Look for settings that control:
- who can look you up using your phone number
- who can look you up using your email address
- whether search engines can link to your profile
Recommended settings for most users:
- Phone lookup: Friends or Only Me
- Email lookup: Friends
- Search engine linking: Off
Why this matters
If scammers, ex-partners, or strangers can find your Facebook account just from a phone number or email address, it becomes much easier to connect your online identity across services.
What you should do
Turn off search engine linking and restrict phone/email lookups to the smallest practical audience.
5. Tighten Friend Request and Follower Settings
Not every Facebook connection request is genuine. Fake accounts often send mass friend requests to collect information or build trust before running scams.
Check settings for:
- who can send you friend requests
- who can follow you
- who can see your friends list
Safer choices usually include:
- Friend requests: Friends of friends
- Followers: Friends
- Friends list visibility: Only Me or Friends
Why this matters
A public friends list can expose your network to cloning scams. A scammer can create a fake version of your profile, copy your photo, and start contacting people you know.
What you should do
Reduce who can send requests and hide your friends list if possible. If you receive a suspicious request, review our advice on how to spot phishing email because many social scams also move into email quickly.
6. Review Timeline and Tagging Controls
You should decide how much control others have over what appears on your profile.
Look for settings covering:
- who can post on your timeline
- who can see what others post on your timeline
- whether you review tags before they appear
- whether you review posts you are tagged in before they show on your profile
Recommended approach:
- Timeline posting: Only Me or Friends
- Tag review: On
- Post review: On
Why this matters
Even if you are careful, other people may tag you in photos, location check-ins, or jokes that reveal more than you want publicly associated with your profile.
What you should do
Turn on all review options available. This gives you a checkpoint before content appears on your timeline.
7. Lock Down Stories, Reels, and Public Comments
People often focus on regular posts and forget Stories, Reels, and comments can also expose personal habits and contacts.
Check the audience for:
- Facebook Stories
- public Reels or short videos
- comments on public posts
- story replies
What you should do
Set Stories to Friends unless you have a strong reason not to. Be careful with public comments on controversial or local community posts.
8. Reduce Ad Personalization and Off-Facebook Tracking
Facebook tracks activity beyond Facebook itself through ad tools embedded across the web and apps. This is a major part of any serious facebook privacy settings checklist.
Review the Ad Preferences area and the off-Facebook activity controls.
Settings worth reviewing
- Ad topics and personalization controls
- Data from partners
- Off-Facebook activity history
- Activity shared from other apps and websites
What off-Facebook activity means
Businesses can send Facebook information about what you do on their apps or websites, such as:
- viewing a product
- adding an item to cart
- completing a purchase
- opening an app
This can influence the ads you see and deepen the profile Facebook has on you.
What you should do
Clear your off-Facebook activity if the option is available, disconnect future activity where possible, and reduce ad personalization settings. For more on this broader problem, read does VPN stop tracking and how to stop companies tracking you online.
9. Review App and Website Connections
Many people have signed into games, quizzes, shopping sites, or apps using Facebook over the years.
Check which third-party apps and websites are connected to your account.
Risks of old app connections
- they may still receive some account data
- old apps may be abandoned or poorly secured
- forgotten permissions increase your attack surface
What you should do
Remove every app or website you no longer actively use. If you still use one, review exactly what information it can access.
10. Turn On Login Alerts and Two-Factor Authentication
Privacy is not just about limiting visibility. It is also about preventing account takeover.
Enable:
- login alerts for unknown devices or locations
- two-factor authentication
If possible, use an authenticator app rather than SMS.
Why this matters
A private profile does not help much if an attacker logs in as you. Facebook accounts are common targets for phishing, password reuse attacks, and SIM swap scams.
What you should do
Turn on two-factor authentication today and make sure your password is unique. If you need help, read how to create strong passwords and are password managers safe.
12. Run a Quick Privacy Self-Audit
After changing your settings, do a simple audit.
Checklist
- View your profile as a public visitor if Facebook offers that feature
- Check what a non-friend can see
- Search your own name in a search engine
- Review your public profile photo, cover photo, bio, and About details
- Scroll through older posts and tagged content
What you should do
Repeat this audit every few months, especially after Facebook redesigns its menus or introduces new features.
Quick Facebook Privacy Settings Checklist
Here is the short version you can work through in one sitting:
| Setting Area | Better Choice for Most People |
|---|---|
| Future posts | Friends |
| Past public posts | Limit audience |
| Phone number visibility | Only Me or Friends |
| Email visibility | Friends |
| Search engine linking | Off |
| Friend requests | Friends of friends |
| Friends list | Only Me or Friends |
| Tag review | On |
| Timeline review | On |
| Story audience | Friends |
| Off-Facebook activity | Clear/restrict |
| App connections | Remove unused |
| Two-factor authentication | On |
| Login alerts | On |
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Leaving profile details public because “there is nothing sensitive there”
Small pieces of data become sensitive when combined.
Accepting friend requests from people you vaguely recognize
Scammers count on that uncertainty.
Reusing your Facebook password elsewhere
A breach on another site can become a Facebook takeover.
Ignoring old posts and tags
Your current habits may be careful, but your past content may still be overexposed.
Final Thoughts
The best facebook privacy settings checklist is not about making your account invisible. It is about making your account intentional. You decide what strangers can see, what advertisers can infer, and what attackers can use against you.
Start with the basics: future post audience, profile details, search lookups, ad settings, and two-factor authentication. Those changes alone can dramatically improve your privacy.
If you want to keep going, pair this with our guides on remove personal information from the internet, what does Google know about you, and is incognito mode really private.
Related Privacy Guides
Facebook is only one part of your privacy footprint. These guides can help you reduce tracking across more services: