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How to make yourself invisible on Facebook

Updated Dec 19th, 2018 9:06PM EST
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Look, you can admit it. You’re a Facebook stalker. You want to see what everyone else is up to, but you don’t want to show people 487 new pictures of your baby every 12 minutes. You don’t want your high school friends you haven’t seen in 20 years knowing that you just checked in at McDonald’s to score a $0.50 coupon on a Big Mac. You don’t want your grandmother to know that you’re out at club at 3:00 a.m. doing tequila shots with a bunch of people you’ve never met.

It’s OK. We’re not here to judge. In fact, we’re here to help. In just a few simple steps, you can make yourself completely invisible on Facebook and stalk people as much as you’d like without having to worry that they might be stalking you back.

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First things first: let’s find out who can see all of Facebook posts right now. Click the Privacy Shortcuts button in the top-right corner on facebook.com, then click “Who can see my stuff?” This will give you access to a few settings, and you can also view your profile page as someone else would see it.

Now that you know the current status of your account and how it’s configured, it’s time to get you where you need to be. Click the Privacy Shortcuts button again and select “See More Settings” at the bottom.

Now click the edit button next to “Who can see your future posts?” and change the setting to “Only Me.”

Next, click the button next to “Limit the audience for posts you’ve shared with friends of friends or Public?” and then click the “Limit old posts” button.

In the “Who can contact me?” section, change “Who can see your friend requests?” to “Friends of friends” and change “Whose messages do I want filtered into my inbox?” from Basic to Strict filtering.

Your “Who can look me up?” section will probably look like this to start:

Change the first two settings to “Friends,” and then uncheck the “Let other search engines link to your timeline” box in last slot.

Next, click “Timeline and Tagging” in the menu bar on the left and set it up as follows:

Image source: Business Insider

Now you’re almost done! Click on “Followers” in the menu on the left and change the setting from “Everyone” to “Friends.”

Lastly, click “Apps” in the menu on the left, and in the “Old versions of Facebook for Mobile” box, change the setting to “Only Me.”

Zach Epstein
Zach Epstein Executive Editor

Zach Epstein has been the Executive Editor at BGR for more than 10 years. He manages BGR’s editorial team and ensures that best practices are adhered to. He also oversees the Ecommerce team and directs the daily flow of all content. Zach first joined BGR in 2007 as a Staff Writer covering business, technology, and entertainment.

His work has been quoted by countless top news organizations, and he was recently named one of the world's top 10 “power mobile influencers” by Forbes. Prior to BGR, Zach worked as an executive in marketing and business development with two private telcos.