How to Make Your Facebook Profile Private: The 2025 Privacy Guide

Facebook now offers a Privacy Checkup tool—a guided walk-through of key settings to help you take control fast.

Access it here:
Menu → Settings & Privacy → Privacy Checkup

You’ll see five main areas:

🟧 Who Can See What You Share
🟪 How People Can Find You on Facebook
🟩 Your Data Settings on Facebook
🟦 How to Keep Your Account Secure
🩷 Your Ad Preferences on Facebook

Each one walks you through the steps to:

• Lock down your posts and profile info
• Control friend requests and searchability
• Limit what data Facebook collects and shares
• Adjust who sees ads (and why)

Pro tip: Even if you’ve updated these before, go through them again—Facebook tends to “revisit” your settings after updates. 😏

🔧 Facebook Privacy Checkup: What to Set in Each Area

Now that you know the five areas of Facebook’s Privacy Checkup, here’s exactly what each section includes—plus what you should pick to stay locked down and leak-proof.

---

🟧 1. Who Can See What You Share

Key Settings:

• Profile Information
  • Email: Only Me
  • Phone Number: Only Me
  • Birthday: Only Me
  • Hometown, Education, Relationship: Only Me or Friends
• Posts
  • Who can see your future posts? → Friends
  • Limit who can see past posts → Limit Past Posts
• Stories
  • Who can see your Stories? → Friends

Why: The less data you expose, the harder it is for scammers to impersonate or target you.

---

🟪 2. How People Can Find You on Facebook

Key Settings:

• Who can send you friend requests? → Friends of Friends
• Who can look you up by phone number? → Only Me
• Who can look you up by email? → Only Me
• Do you want search engines to link to your profile? → No

Why: Keeps strangers and phishing bots out of your friend list and off your trail.

---

🟩 3. Your Data Settings on Facebook

Key Settings:

• Apps and Websites connected to Facebook
  • Remove old apps you don’t use
  • Disable unnecessary data sharing
• Ad Preferences
  • Review what interests and topics Facebook uses for ads
  • Turn off “Ads based on your activity from partners”
  • Turn off “Ads that include your social actions”

Why: You’re not a product. Stop feeding the algorithm your life story.

---

🟦 4. How to Keep Your Account Secure

Key Settings:

• Password → Use a strong, unique password
• Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) → Enable with your phone or an authenticator app
• Login Alerts → Turn ON for unrecognized devices or locations

Why: Strong walls, loud alarms. If someone breaks in, you’ll know—and they won’t get far.

---

🩷 5. Your Ad Preferences on Facebook

Key Settings:

• Review Information Used in Ads
  • Relationship status, job title, education: TURN OFF
• Ad Topics
  • Opt out of sensitive categories or ones that feel invasive
• Advertisers
  • Remove advertisers you don’t recognize or trust

Why: Don’t give advertisers a backstage pass to your digital life.

---

🧠 Final Pro Tips

• Re-check your privacy settings every few months—Facebook loves to reset them quietly.
• When in doubt, set it to “Only Me”.
• Always verify friend requests—even if the profile looks familiar. Scammers often clone real accounts.

---