How to Change Sharing Settings on Facebook

Fine-tuning your Facebook sharing settings gives you full control over who sees your photos, updates, and personal information. Whether you're locking down an old account or managing a brand's public presence, mastering these options is essential. This guide will walk you through exactly how to adjust your default privacy settings, change the audience for individual posts (both old and new), and audit your entire profile's visibility from top to bottom.

The Foundation: Your Default Privacy Setting

Every time you post, Facebook applies a default audience setting. Setting this up correctly saves you from having to adjust every single status update. This is your first line of defense for controlling privacy and your starting point for managing how you share content.

The audience options typically include:

• Public: Anyone on or off Facebook can see your post. This is the broadest setting.
• Friends: Only your Facebook friends can see the post.
• Friends except...: Lets you hide a post from specific people on your friends list.
• Specific Friends: Shows the post only to a select group of friends you choose.
• Only Me: The post is visible only to you. This is useful for saving drafts or notes.

How to Change Your Default Privacy Setting on Desktop

Adjusting this setting only takes a minute and affects all future posts you make from any device.

1. Click the downward arrow icon in the top-right corner of your Facebook page.
2. Select Settings & Privacy, and then click on Settings.
3. In the left-hand menu, click Privacy.
4. Look for the section titled "Your Activity." Find the option Who can see your future posts? and click Edit on the right.
5. From the dropdown menu, choose your preferred default audience (e.g., Friends, Public).

This setting will now be the default for any new post you create unless you manually change it for that specific post.

How to Change Your Default Privacy Setting on Mobile (iOS & Android)

The process is similar on the mobile app.

1. Tap the hamburger menu icon (three horizontal lines) in the bottom-right corner (iOS) or top-right corner (Android).
2. Scroll down and tap Settings & Privacy, then tap Settings.
3. Scroll down to the "Audience and Visibility" section and tap on Posts.
4. Under "Who can see your future posts?", tap to select your default audience.

Changing Privacy on a Post-by-Post Basis

Your default setting is just that - a default. You have the flexibility to change the audience for any individual post before or after you publish it. This is perfect for situations where you want to share a work accomplishment publicly but keep family photos limited to just friends.

Adjusting the Audience for a New Post

Before you hit that blue "Post" button, take a second to check the audience selector. It's built right into the "Create Post" window.

• On Desktop: Below your name, you'll see a button that shows your current default audience (e.g., "Friends"). Click on it to open the "Select Audience" pop-up and choose a different setting for this specific post.
• On Mobile: Directly under your name in the post composer, tap the audience button (it will say "Friends," "Public," etc.). This will bring up a screen where you can select a new audience just for this post.

This manual change only applies to the post you are creating now. Your account's default setting will remain unchanged for the next time you create a post.

Editing the Audience for an Existing Post

Ever posted something publicly by mistake? Or perhaps you've decided a post previously shared with "Friends" is something you'd now like a wider audience to see. It's easy to fix.

1. Find the post on your timeline or profile that you want to change.
2. Click or tap the three dots icon (...) in the top-right corner of the post.
3. From the menu that appears, select Edit audience.
4. Choose your new desired audience from the list (Public, Friends, Only Me, etc.).

Your post’s visibility will update instantly. Keep in mind that if you change a post's privacy from a wider audience (like Public) to a more restrictive one (like Friends), people who are no longer in the audience will no longer see it.

Managing Tags, Mentions, and Your Timeline

Controlling your sharing settings goes beyond just your own posts. It also includes what other people can post about you. These settings are found in the "Profile and Tagging" section and are foundational to maintaining your online reputation.

How to Find the "Profile and Tagging" Menu

• On Desktop: Go to Settings & Privacy > Settings > Profile and Tagging (in the left menu).
• On Mobile: Go to Menu > Settings & Privacy > Settings > Profile and Tagging (under the "Audience and Visibility" section).

Key Settings to Review:

1. Who can post on your profile?

Under the "Viewing and Sharing" section, you can decide between "Friends" or "Only Me." Setting this to "Only Me" prevents others from publishing new posts directly to your timeline. They can still tag you in their own posts, but those posts won't appear on your profile feed unless you approve them.

2. Who can see what others post on your profile?

This allows you to control the audience for posts others make on your timeline. You can select "Everyone," "Friends of Friends," "Friends," and other customized options. This is handy for preventing a friend’s casual post from being seen by your professional contacts.

3. Review posts you're tagged in before the post appears on your profile?

This is arguably one of the most powerful privacy tools on Facebook. Turn this on under the "Reviewing" section. When someone tags you in a post, you'll get a notification. The post will not appear on your timeline unless and until you manually approve it. It essentially gives you veto power over any content associated with your name appearing on your profile.

The Ultimate Privacy Audit: Privacy Checkup & Limiting Past Posts

Facebook settings are spread out, but their "Privacy Checkup" tool groups the most important ones into simple, guided modules. It's the best way to do a comprehensive audit of your account in just a few minutes.

Using the Privacy Checkup Tool

To find it, go to Settings & Privacy > Privacy Checkup. You'll see several modules. Here are the most relevant ones to sharing settings:

• Who can see what you share: This walks you through your default post visibility, profile information (like your work and education), and your friends list visibility. It’s a great way to confirm everything is set exactly as you want it.
• How people can find you on Facebook: This covers who can send you friend requests and who can look you up using your email address or phone number.
• Your ad settings on Facebook: While not strictly about sharing settings, this impacts how your data is used for advertisements, which is a key part of your digital privacy.

Go through each module step-by-step. Facebook does a good job of explaining what each setting does as you audit them.

The Nuclear Option: Limit Past Posts

Maybe you've spent years posting with "Public" settings and now want to lock everything down without manually editing hundreds of posts. There's a tool for that.

Inside the Privacy settings menu (Settings & Privacy > Settings > Privacy), under "Your Activity," you'll find an option called Limit the audience for posts you've shared with friends of friends or Public?

Clicking Limit Past Posts will bring up a confirmation warning. This single click changes the audience of every single past post on your timeline that was set to "Public" or "Friends of Friends" to just "Friends."

Important: This action is permanent and cannot be undone in bulk. If you want to make one of those posts public again later, you'll have to find it and change its audience manually. Use this feature carefully, but it is an incredibly effective tool for a fast privacy overhaul.

Final Thoughts

Taking a few moments to understand and configure your Facebook sharing settings puts you back in charge of your digital footprint. Regularly auditing your default settings, managing timeline tagging, and using tools like the Privacy Checkup will give you complete confidence in how your content is being seen.

Once you’ve nailed down your privacy and know who sees your awesome content, the next step is delivering that content consistently. At Postbase, we believe managing your socials should be straightforward, which is why we built a modern tool focused on what matters most. With our visual calendar, you can plan and schedule content across all your platforms in one clean view, eliminating the chaos of guessing when and what to post.