How to Turn On Comments on Facebook

Wondering why your latest Facebook post is a ghost town? Enabling comments is often the first step to starting a real conversation with your audience. This guide walks you through exactly how to turn on comments for your Facebook profile, Page, and Group, plus how to troubleshoot common issues when the settings aren't cooperating.

Why Comments Are Your Social Media Goldmine

Before jumping into the how-to, it’s worth remembering why comments matter so much. They're more than just little bursts of text under your content, they are the lifeblood of an active social media presence. Every comment is a signal to Facebook's algorithm that people find your content interesting, which can push your post to a wider audience. More than that, comments build a community.

They are real feedback from your audience, a chance to answer questions, and a way to show that there's a real person or team behind the brand. When followers see you actively replying, it encourages them to join the conversation, creating a self-sustaining cycle of engagement. In short, turning on and encouraging comments is a direct line to building brand trust and organically growing your reach.

The Two Layers of Comment Control: Account-Level vs. Post-Level

The most common hang-up with Facebook comments is not understanding that two different settings are at play: your overall account privacy and the specific audience of an individual post.

• Account-Level Settings: These are your default privacy settings for profiles or general settings for Pages. They act as the master switch, setting the maximum level of openness for your content. For personal profiles, this is where you decide if "the public" can follow you and comment in the first place.
• Post-Level Settings: Each time you create a post, you choose an audience for it (e.g., Public, Friends, Friends except...). This setting can *only* be as open as your account-level settings allow. You can’t make a post "Public" if your entire account is locked down to "Friends only."

Most comment problems happen when one of these settings contradicts the other. We'll show you how to check both.

How to Turn On Comments on a Facebook Personal Profile

For personal profiles, your ability to receive comments from people you aren’t friends with is tied directly to your follower and audience settings. If you want anyone on Facebook to be able to comment, you need to allow public followers and set your post's audience to Public.

Step 1: Check Your Main Follower and Privacy Settings

First, you need to adjust your profile’s default settings to allow comments from the public. This tells Facebook you’re open to engagement beyond your immediate friend circle.

On Desktop:

1. Click your profile picture in the top-right corner and select Settings & Privacy, then Settings.
2. On the left-hand menu, click Privacy. Look for the section titled "How People Find and Contact You." Make sure "Who can send you friend requests?" is set to at least "Friends of Friends" or "Everyone" for maximum visibility.
3. Next, in the left-hand menu, click on Followers and Public Content. This page is the command center for non-friend interactions.
4. Under "Who Can Follow Me," make sure Public is selected.
5. Under "Public Post Comments," select Public. This allows people who follow you but aren't your friends to comment on your public posts.
6. You can also adjust "Public Post Notifications" and "Public Profile Info" to your comfort level, but "Public Post Comments" is the one that matters here.

On Mobile (iOS or Android):

1. Tap the menu button (three horizontal lines) in the bottom-right (iOS) or top-right (Android).
2. Scroll down and tap Settings & Privacy, then Settings.
3. Under the "Audience and Visibility" section, tap on Followers and Public Content.
4. Make sure "Who can follow me" is set to Public.
5. Under "Public Post Comments," ensure Public is checked.

Setting this to Public doesn't automatically make all your posts public - it just gives you the option to share publicly and receive comments from anyone.

Step 2: Adjust the Audience of Individual Posts

Once your main settings allow for it, you can control comments on a post-by-post basis. A grayed-out comment button usually means the post's audience is restricted.

• When creating a new post: Look for the audience dropdown menu, which is usually right below your name. It likely defaults to "Friends." Click it and change it to Public. Now, anyone on Facebook will be able to see and comment on it.
• For an existing post: Find the post on your timeline. Click the three dots (...) in the top-right corner of the post and select Edit Audience. Change it from "Friends" or a custom list to Public. The comment box should now be open to everyone.

How to Turn On Comments for a Facebook Business Page

By nature, Facebook Pages are public, so comments are almost always turned on by default. If people are reporting they can't comment, it’s rarely because they're "off." More likely, it's caused by page restrictions or a moderation setting doing its job too aggressively.

Check Your Page Moderation Settings

Admins can set up filters that automatically hide comments containing specific words or phrases. If a user’s comment contains one of these, it won't appear, making them think comments are disabled.

On Desktop:

1. Navigate to your Facebook Page and select Settings from the left-hand menu.
2. Click on Privacy, then select Public Posts. Here you can manage comment settings similar to a personal profile, including comment ranking.
3. Return to the main settings page. Under "Page," find Page and tagging. This allows you to control who can post on your Page.
4. For deeper moderation, navigate to your Professional Dashboard > Moderation Assist.
5. Here, you can add or review criteria that automatically hide comments. This could be things like "Comments with Links," "Keywords in comment," or "Profanity in comment." Check these rules to see if they're too strict and hiding legitimate comments.

Essentially, on a Business Page, instead of "turning comments on," you're making sure nothing is set up to block them. If you can’t find a setting related to comments being off, it’s because a blanket "off" switch doesn't exist for Pages - only specific, post-by-post controls.

How to Turn Comments On or Off for a Specific Post

Sometimes you need to shut down a conversation that's getting out of hand, or you might have turned comments off by mistake. This function works similarly for personal profiles, Pages, and Group posts. It's a granular control that overrides all other settings for that single post.

1. Find the post in question on your timeline, Page feed, or within the group.
2. Click the three dots (...) in the top-right corner of the post.
3. A dropdown menu will appear. You'll see an option that says either Turn off commenting (if they're currently on) or Turn on commenting (if they're off).
4. Click Turn on commenting.

If you don't see this option, it means comments haven't been manually turned off. Your issue is likely related to the post’s audience settings (for profiles) or an aggressive moderation filter (for Pages).

How to Manage Comments in a Facebook Group

Facebook Groups give admins the most powerful tools for managing conversations. If members are unable to comment, it's almost certainly because of a specific setting or action controlled by an admin.

For Group Members:

If you're a member (not an admin), you can't control another person's comment settings. If you can't comment on a specific post, it’s because an admin has manually turned off comments for that particular thread. This is often done to stop arguments, prevent the spread of misinformation, or lock an announcement permanently.

For Group Admins:

As an admin, you have multiple ways to manage comments:

• Turning comments on/off for a post: Just like with profiles and Pages, find the specific post within your group. Click the three dots (...) at the top right of the post and select Turn on commenting.
• Post Approval: In your Group Settings, you can enable "Post Approval." This means all posts must be approved by an admin or moderator before they are visible to other members. While this doesn’t affect comments on approved posts, it can create the illusion that comments are off if posts are stuck in a queue.
• Member Posting Permissions: Under Group Settings > Manage Discussion, you can set who can post ("Anyone in the group" or "Only admins"). If members are complaining they can't even make posts (let alone get comments), check this setting.

Troubleshooting: "Comments Still Aren't Working!"

If you've followed the steps above and are still having trouble, run through this quick checklist:

1. Is the post's audience set to Public? For profiles, this is the #1 cause of the problem. If it's set to "Friends," only your friends can comment.
2. Did you check your Follower settings? Your master account settings must allow public comments for the Public post audience option to work correctly.
3. Are you running a keyword block or profanity filter? For Pages, an overzealous Moderation Assist or content moderation setting could be hiding comments that you think aren't being posted at all. Check your banned words list.
4. Have you blocked the user? You cannot see comments from people you have blocked, and they cannot comment on your posts.
5. Is the issue specific to one person? Ask someone else to try and comment. If others can comment but one person can't, the problem is on their end or they are on a restricted list you've created.

Final Thoughts

Mastering Facebook comment settings is all about knowing where to look. By checking both your profile or Page's global privacy settings and the individual audience settings for each post, you can ensure your content is always open for the conversations you want to have.

Once you open the floodgates to engagement, managing it all can become a job in itself. With comments, messages, and mentions pouring in across different platforms, it’s easy to miss opportunities to connect. That’s why we built our unified social inbox in Postbase. We bring every comment and DM from Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and more into one clean feed, so you can reply to your community quickly and never let a conversation fall through the cracks.