How to Make It Harder for People to Find You on Facebook
Limit who can look you up., Hide your profile from search engines., Restrict the people who can contact you or add you., Limit all connections to friends only., Eliminate leaks through friends., Block problematic users.
Step-by-Step Guide
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Step 1: Limit who can look you up.
Under your settings, you have the ability to control who can look up your profile on Facebook and how they can look you up.
However, the default setting allows anyone to look you up who has your phone number or email address.Click the edit link to change this setting so that only people already on your friends list can look you up with your phone number or email address.
Additionally, you might want to use a separate email address for school or work contacts to eliminate the chance someone can look you up by your email address.
This can be helpful if you're trying to hide your Facebook from potential employers. -
Step 2: Hide your profile from search engines.
On the same settings page where you edited who could look you up, you also have the option to remove your page from search engine results.
The default allows your page to be found in search results.If you toggle this option off, your Facebook profile won't appear if someone searches your name on a public search engine such as Bing or Google.
Keep in mind this still won't keep people from looking you up within Facebook.
The only way you can eliminate that is to either deactivate your account or make all of your posts and information visible only to you. , Under your privacy settings, you have the ability to prevent random people from sending you messages or trying to add you as friends.
However, the default setting here is that "everyone" can send you friend requests.Changing this to "friends of friends" gives you a little more control, because at least then the person has to be connected to you in some way before they can attempt to add you as a friend. , Under the heading "Connecting on Facebook," you can set all options to friends only.
Read each of these options carefully before you change them, because this will give you the strictest possible privacy settings you can get on Facebook short of deactivating your account.However, switching all connections to friends only does give you the greatest amount of control over your profile.
If you want to make it harder for people to find you on Facebook, this will enable you greater control over your privacy. , No matter how tight your privacy settings are, you still can't control the privacy settings of your friends.
That means that any time you interact with your friends, you can potentially be discovered by someone.To take care of this, go to your privacy settings and click on "Info Accessible Through Your Friends." This will let you see how much of your information is getting through your friends' more open security or privacy settings so you can act accordingly. , Whether someone's harassing you, or you just no longer trust them having access to what you post, you can easily block their account so they will no longer be able to see your profile or interact with you.Simply go to your settings and click "Blocking." Under "block users," add their name.
Save your changes and they will no longer have access to your account.
You also can block friends by going to their profile and tapping the three dots under their cover photo.
Choose "block" from the menu of options that appears and they will be blocked automatically. -
Step 3: Restrict the people who can contact you or add you.
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Step 4: Limit all connections to friends only.
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Step 5: Eliminate leaks through friends.
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Step 6: Block problematic users.
Detailed Guide
Under your settings, you have the ability to control who can look up your profile on Facebook and how they can look you up.
However, the default setting allows anyone to look you up who has your phone number or email address.Click the edit link to change this setting so that only people already on your friends list can look you up with your phone number or email address.
Additionally, you might want to use a separate email address for school or work contacts to eliminate the chance someone can look you up by your email address.
This can be helpful if you're trying to hide your Facebook from potential employers.
On the same settings page where you edited who could look you up, you also have the option to remove your page from search engine results.
The default allows your page to be found in search results.If you toggle this option off, your Facebook profile won't appear if someone searches your name on a public search engine such as Bing or Google.
Keep in mind this still won't keep people from looking you up within Facebook.
The only way you can eliminate that is to either deactivate your account or make all of your posts and information visible only to you. , Under your privacy settings, you have the ability to prevent random people from sending you messages or trying to add you as friends.
However, the default setting here is that "everyone" can send you friend requests.Changing this to "friends of friends" gives you a little more control, because at least then the person has to be connected to you in some way before they can attempt to add you as a friend. , Under the heading "Connecting on Facebook," you can set all options to friends only.
Read each of these options carefully before you change them, because this will give you the strictest possible privacy settings you can get on Facebook short of deactivating your account.However, switching all connections to friends only does give you the greatest amount of control over your profile.
If you want to make it harder for people to find you on Facebook, this will enable you greater control over your privacy. , No matter how tight your privacy settings are, you still can't control the privacy settings of your friends.
That means that any time you interact with your friends, you can potentially be discovered by someone.To take care of this, go to your privacy settings and click on "Info Accessible Through Your Friends." This will let you see how much of your information is getting through your friends' more open security or privacy settings so you can act accordingly. , Whether someone's harassing you, or you just no longer trust them having access to what you post, you can easily block their account so they will no longer be able to see your profile or interact with you.Simply go to your settings and click "Blocking." Under "block users," add their name.
Save your changes and they will no longer have access to your account.
You also can block friends by going to their profile and tapping the three dots under their cover photo.
Choose "block" from the menu of options that appears and they will be blocked automatically.
About the Author
Gary Harris
Enthusiastic about teaching practical skills techniques through clear, step-by-step guides.
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