How to Delete All Facebook Posts

Ready to wipe your Facebook slate clean? Clearing out years of old posts can feel like a fresh start, whether for privacy, professional reasons, or a simple digital declutter. This tutorial guides you through Facebook's official tools for deleting, archiving, or hiding all your posts in bulk, helping you take back control of your profile safely and effectively.

Why Would You Want to Delete Your Facebook Posts?

Mass-deleting your history might sound drastic, but people have plenty of good reasons for doing it. Over the years, our online footprints grow, and what we shared a decade ago might not reflect who we are today. Understanding why you want to clear your timeline can help you choose the best method.

• A Fresh Start: Perhaps you're stepping into a new phase of life - a new career, relationship, or personal brand. Clearing out the past allows you to curate a profile that reflects your current self without the baggage of old photos, status updates, and shared memes.
• Enhanced Privacy: College photos, candid thoughts from 2009, check-ins at places you no longer visit - your history contains a massive amount of personal data. Wiping your feed is a powerful step toward reclaiming your digital privacy and controlling what information about you exists online.
• Professional Image: Before a job interview, it's standard practice for recruiters to look up candidates on social media. A clean, professional-looking profile can make a better first impression than a timeline filled with decade-old party pictures or controversial opinions you no longer hold.
• Digital Minimalism: For some, the goal is to simplify their digital life. Removing old content reduces digital clutter and can make social media feel less like a permanent, public diary and more like a tool for current connections.

Before You Start: Critical Things to Consider

Pausing for a moment before you begin can save you from future regret. Once you hit delete, there’s no quick "undo" button. Here’s what you should think about first.

1. Are You Sure You Want to Delete, Not Archive?

Facebook offers two main options: moving posts to the Trash (Delete) and Archiving. Understanding the difference is vital.

• Move to Trash (Delete): This sends your posts to a Trash folder where they remain for 30 days before being permanently deleted. After 30 days, they are gone forever. This is the option for a complete and permanent cleanup.
• Archive: This hides posts from your timeline, making them invisible to everyone but you. They are not deleted and can be restored to your timeline at any time. This is the perfect choice if you want to clean your public profile but are hesitant to lose the memories for good.

Our recommendation: Start with Archiving. You get the benefit of a clean slate without the finality of deletion. If after a few months you still feel you don't need the posts, you can always move them from your archive to the trash.

2. Download Your Data First

If you're set on permanent deletion, do yourself a favor and back everything up first. Facebook lets you download a complete archive of your information, including all your posts, photos, videos, comments, and messages. This way, you can keep a personal record of your memories without leaving them plastered all over the internet.

Here’s how to download your information:

1. Click your profile picture in the top right corner and go to Settings & Privacy > Settings.
2. On the left menu, find and click on Your Facebook Information.
3. Click View next to "Download Your Information."
4. You can request a complete copy or select only specific types of data to download (like just your Posts).
5. Choose your date range, format (HTML is easiest to browse), and media quality, then click Request a download.

The process can take a while depending on how much data you have. Facebook will notify you when your file is ready to download.

Method 1: Using Facebook’s "Manage Posts" Tool (The Official Way)

Unfortunately, Facebook does not offer a single "delete all" button. However, their "Manage Posts" tool is the official and safest way to delete or archive posts in bulk. The process involves selecting batches of posts at a time. It requires some patience, but it works.

How to Delete All Posts on Desktop

The desktop interface is the most efficient for managing a large number of posts.

1. Go to your Facebook profile by clicking your name.
2. Right below your cover photo, find the “…” button and click it. From the dropdown menu, select Activity Log.
3. In the left-hand menu of the Activity Log, click on Your Activity Across Facebook. A sub-menu will open.
4. Click on Posts. Then, select Your posts, check-ins, photos and videos.
5. You will now see a list of your posts. At the top of the list, click the Manage Your Posts button.
6. This will open the bulk management tool. At the top left, there’s a checkbox labeled All. Checking this box will select a batch of up to 50 posts at a time.
7. After checking "All," you'll see two options at the bottom of the screen: Archive and Move to Trash. Choose "Move to Trash" for deletion.
8. A confirmation popup will appear. Confirm your choice to move the selected posts to the trash.
9. Repeat the process. Scroll down a bit, click “All” again to select the next 50 posts, and move them to trash. Continue until your timeline is clear.

Pro-Tip: Use the filters at the top to narrow down posts by year, month, or who posted them. This can speed things up if you're trying to clear a specific period, like your college years.

How to Delete All Posts on the Mobile App

You can also access the "Manage Posts" tool right from the Facebook app on your phone.

1. Go to your profile page in the app.
2. Tap the three-dot menu (“…”) next to "Edit Profile."
3. From the menu, select Activity Log.
4. Under "Your activity across Facebook," tap Posts and then Manage Your Posts.
5. This will open a screen showing all your posts with checkboxes next to them. You can tap the All checkbox at the top to select a batch of posts.
6. With your posts selected, tap Archive or Move to Trash at the bottom.
7. Confirm your action in the popup.
8. Just like on the desktop, you'll need to repeat this process for each batch of posts until you've cleared your history.

Method 2: Limiting the Audience for Past Posts (The Quick Privacy Fix)

If your main goal is privacy rather than outright deletion, this is a fantastic and fast option. With one click, you can change the audience for all your past "Public" or "Friends of Friends" posts to "Friends" only. This instantly hides a huge amount of your history from strangers and potential employers without deleting anything.

1. Navigate to Settings & Privacy > Settings.
2. Under the Audience and Visibility section, select Posts.
3. You’ll see an option called Limit who can see past posts. Click the Limit Past Posts button.
4. A final warning will pop up explaining that this action will change all applicable old posts to a "Friends" audience. It also notes that if you want to undo this, you’ll have to change the audience of each post individually.
5. Click Limit Past Posts again to confirm. That's it!

This is a powerful privacy tool, but remember its limitation: it won’t affect posts where you've used a custom audience or where you're tagged in someone else's post.

A Word of Warning About Third-Party Tools and Browser Extensions

A quick search will reveal browser extensions and third-party apps that promise to delete all your Facebook posts with a single click. While tempting, using them is a significant risk.

• Security Risks: To work, these tools often require you to give them access to your Facebook account, either by logging in through their system or by providing them with an access token. This gives a third-party developer full access to your account and personal data.
• Violation of Terms of Service: Using automated scripts to interact with Facebook is against their terms of service. This could lead to your account being temporarily restricted or even permanently disabled.
• Unreliability: Facebook frequently updates its code, which causes these unofficial extensions to break often. They might stop working midway through, leaving you with a partially deleted timeline and no support.

The safest, most reliable method is to use the native "Manage Posts" tool provided by Facebook. It takes more time, but you remain in complete control of your account and your data.

Final Thoughts

Clearing your Facebook history gives you a fresh digital slate, and using tools like "Manage Posts" puts the control firmly in your hands. Whether you choose to delete, archive, or simply limit the audience of old posts, you can take meaningful steps to align your online profile with your present self.

Once you’ve cleared out the past and are ready to be more intentional with your content going forward, building a consistent social presence can still feel like a challenge. That’s why we built Postbase. After cleaning our own accounts, we wanted a tool to help us plan, schedule, and analyze new content from one simple dashboard. We designed it for modern formats like Reels and Shorts, which helps us build a brand that feels current, not dated. It saves us time that we used to spend juggling apps so we can focus on creating awesome content we'll be proud of for years to come.