How to Delete a Comment on Facebook

Thinking about cleaning up a conversation on Facebook? Whether you made a typo, replied to the wrong thread, or need to manage spam on your page, deleting a comment is simple once you know where to look. This guide walks you through the exact steps for deleting comments on desktop and mobile, explains the key differences between hiding and deleting, and covers other moderation tools to help keep your Page an engaging place for your community.

Why Bother Deleting a Comment?

While the act of deleting is straightforward, the reasons behind it can vary. Understanding your motivation helps you choose the right action, whether you’re a casual user or a professional social media manager. Most scenarios fall into one of these three categories.

1. Cleaning Up Your Own Comments

We’ve all been there. You hit enter a little too quickly and spot a glaring typo. Or maybe you re-read your comment and realized it didn’t quite capture the tone you intended. You might have even posted a comment meant for a private message. Deleting your own comment is the digital equivalent of taking back what you said, offering a quick way to correct mistakes or remove something you later regret sharing. It's simple digital housekeeping for your online presence.

2. Moderating Comments on Your Personal Profile

Your personal profile is your space, and you have every right to curate the conversations that happen there. You might want to remove comments on your posts to steer a conversation back on track if it becomes negative or argumentative. It's also an effective way to get rid of spam links, unsolicited sales pitches, or rude remarks from trolls. Maintaining a positive environment on your own profile often starts with pruning comments that detract from it.

3. Managing a Brand or Business Page

For brands, businesses, and content creators, community management isn't just a feature, it's a necessity. Deleting comments becomes a tool for protecting your brand’s reputation and fostering a healthy online community. Common reasons for deleting comments on a Page include:

• Removing Spam: Getting rid of fraudulent links, repetitive bot comments, or irrelevant promotions.
• Stopping Misinformation: Correcting or removing comments that spread false information about your brand or services.
• Enforcing Community Guidelines: Removing hate speech, harassment, personal attacks, or content containing profanity that violates your page's rules.
• Protecting Customer Privacy: Deleting comments where users have accidentally shared personal information, like phone numbers or account details.

Effective moderation ensures your Facebook Page remains a safe and valuable space for your actual audience to engage.

Step-by-Step: How to Delete Your Own Comment

Made a mistake? No problem. Removing your own comment takes just a few seconds on any device.

On a Desktop Computer (Web Browser)

If you're browsing Facebook on a laptop or desktop, follow these simple steps:

1. Navigate to the post and find the comment you wrote.
2. Hover your cursor over your comment. A three-dot menu icon (...) will appear to the right.
3. Click the three-dot icon to open up a small menu.
4. Select "Delete" from the options.
5. A confirmation box will appear to make sure you want to proceed. Click "Delete" again to permanently remove the comment.

On a Mobile Device (Facebook App)

Using the Facebook app on your phone or tablet is just as easy:

1. Open the Facebook app and find the comment you wish to delete.
2. Tap and hold down on your comment.
3. A menu with several options will appear from the bottom of your screen.
4. Tap on the red "Delete" option.
5. Confirm the deletion in the pop-up window. Your comment is now gone.

How to Delete Someone Else’s Comment on Your Post

Whether you're managing comments on your personal timeline or a brand Page, you are in control of the conversation on posts you create.

On a Desktop Computer (Web Browser)

Removing a comment someone else left on your post follows almost the same process:

1. Go to your post and locate the specific comment you want to remove.
2. Hover over the comment. The same three-dot icon (...) will appear next to it.
3. Click the icon. You'll see a menu that includes "Hide comment," "Report comment," and "Delete." You may also see an option to block or ban the user.
4. Select "Delete" to completely remove it from the post.

On a Mobile Device (Facebook App)

The process on mobile is quick and intuitive for moderating on the go:

1. In the app, navigate to the comment on your post.
2. Tap and hold the comment until a menu appears.
3. Select "Delete" from the list of options.
4. Confirm the action one more time, and the comment and its replies will be removed.

Hiding vs. Deleting: Which One Should You Choose?

When you moderate comments on a Page, Facebook gives you two primary choices: hiding and deleting. They might seem similar, but their effects are very different, and choosing the right one is a key part of smart community management.

What Deleting a Comment Does

Deleting a comment is a permanent and final action. When you delete a comment:

• The comment is completely removed from the post.
• No one, including the original commenter, can see it anymore.
• All replies to that comment are also permanently deleted.
• The poster of the comment is not notified, but they will realize it's gone if they come back to the post.

When to use it: Use the delete option for clear-cut violations of your community guidelines. This is the go-to for spam, hate speech, illegal content, or blatant misinformation. There’s no need to preserve these comments, they should be removed swiftly and permanently.

What Hiding a Comment Does

Hiding a comment is a more nuanced moderation technique. When you hide a comment:

• The comment becomes invisible to the public (to everyone else viewing the post).
• However, the person who posted it and their Facebook friends can still see it.
• The commenter has no idea their comment has been hidden. To them, it looks like it’s still live on the post.

When to use it: Hiding is powerful for dealing with trolls, disgruntled customers who are being disruptive, or comments that are unnecessarily negative but don't strictly break any rules. Since the person doesn't know their comment is hidden, it prevents them from getting angry and posting again in retaliation. They simply think their comment is being ignored, which often de-escalates the situation without silencing them directly. It’s a form of soft moderation that lets you clean up a thread without starting a fight.

More Than Just Deleting: Advanced Moderation Options

Effective community management goes beyond just removing the occasional bad comment. Facebook provides a suite of tools to help you proactively maintain a positive environment on your Page.

Blocking or Banning a User

If a person is repeatedly leaving problematic comments, you can take a bigger step. Blocking them from your Page or Profile prevents them from finding your Page, posting content, commenting, or sending you messages. It's the strongest action you can take to stop a persistent troll or spammer.

Reporting a Comment

If a comment clearly violates Facebook’s Community Standards (i.e., it contains credible threats, harassment, or graphic violence), you should report it to Facebook in addition to deleting it. This alerts their moderation team, which can take action on the user’s account. Use this for serious issues that go beyond just your Page’s rules.

Setting Up Automated Moderation

For busy Page admins, Facebook's Moderation Assist can be a game-changer. You can set up rules to automatically hide comments that contain certain keywords, links, or profanity. This acts as your first line of defense, catching a lot of spam and inappropriate content before you even have to see it.

Common Questions After Deleting a Comment

Once you’ve clicked that delete button, a few questions might pop into your head. Here are the answers to the most common ones.

Does Facebook notify the person when their comment is deleted?

No. Facebook does not send any notification to a user alerting them that their comment was removed. However, that doesn't mean they won't notice. If they navigate back to the post, they'll see their comment is no longer there. In contrast, if you hide the comment, it will still be visible to them and their friends.

Can I recover a deleted comment?

No, you can't. Deletion is a permanent action. Once a comment is deleted, neither you nor the original commenter can undo it. This is why it’s important to be sure before you delete, especially if you think you might need a record of the comment later. Hiding is reversible, making it a safer first step if you're uncertain.

What happens to the replies after I delete the main comment?

When you delete a parent comment, the entire conversational thread attached to it disappears. All likes and replies associated with that original comment are deleted along with it. This allows you to remove an entire off-topic or negative discussion in one move.

Final Thoughts

Deleting a comment on Facebook is a simple technical task, but knowing when and how to do it effectively is an essential skill for managing any online space. By understanding the difference between deleting and hiding, and by using the other moderation tools at your disposal, you can create a more positive and productive community around your content.

When you’re managing an active brand with hundreds of comments coming in across Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms, manually deleting and moderating can quickly feel like a never-ending task. That's why we built the Engagement inbox in Postbase from the ground up to make life easier. Instead of jumping between apps, you can log in to one simple dashboard and see all your comments and DMs in a single place, making it easy to moderate conversations and respond to your audience without feeling overwhelmed.

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