Sure, it’s easy to choose how far and wide to share your latest Facebook updates and photos; all you have to do is pick an option (like “Public,” “Friends,” or “Only Me”) from a nearby pull-down menu.
But what about all those other photos, videos, and updates you’ve posted on Facebook over the years? Lost track of who you’re sharing them with? You’re not the only one.
Well, one (rather tedious) option is to retrace your steps, checking each and every post on your profile to see who you shared them with; just hover over a post with your mouse and check out the icon that appears to the right.
A pair of silhouetted heads means a post is shared with your friends only, while a gear icon represents a custom sharing setting (for, say, a few selected friends, or your friends plus all their friends).
A little globe means … well, everyone.
Want to make a change? Click the icon to select a new setting.
If you’d rather not cull through dozens or even hundreds of old posts, there’s an easy—if somewhat drastic—way to lock them down all at once, so only those on your Friends list can see them.
The process takes just a few clicks, but as Facebook warns, there’s no way to undo it—shy of going back and changing the sharing settings for each post by hand, of course.
Also, keep in mind that any specific Facebook users tagged in your posted photos or content will still be able to see those specific posts—and their friends (including non-mutual ones) may have access to those posts, too.
Here’s what you do:
- Click the little downward arrow in the upper-right corner of any Facebook page, then select “Privacy Settings” from the drop-down menu.
- Near the bottom of the page, find the heading that reads “Limit the Audience for Past Posts,” then click the “Manage Past Post Visibility” link right next to it.
- Sure you’re ready to proceed? If so, click the “Limit Old Posts” button.
And with that, clang! Now all your old wall posts are restricted to your Facebook friends and any specifically tagged Facebook users.
Looking for more Facebook tips? Click here!
Note: This revised and updated article was first published in September 2011.
This is great info. for people to know. I just wrote an episode about Facebook privacy for eHow and didn’t cover this part specifically. Ah Facebook, could you be more of a moving target?
Question: If one limits past posts using this function, does it mean that all past posts will be changed to friends only?
If so then wouldn’t that mean that albums or posts which were restricted to only a handful of people would become MORE visible? Or do those tighter restrictions you’ve made in the past stay true? I’m surprised the answer to this isn’t obvious in the literature on Facebooks own pages.
Good question. Here’s what Facebook’s help center has to say:
“If you use this tool, content on your timeline you’ve shared with friends of friends or Public will change to Friends. Remember: people who are tagged and their friends may see those posts as well.”
So it sounds like the “Limit the Audience” tool only applies to posts shared publicly or with “friends of friends,” and not to posts with more restrictive privacy settings (like to just a few friends, or “Only Me”). That said, I haven’t tested this for myself yet. Once I do, I’ll report back.
Do you have any idea whether it would change privacy settings from “friends” to “friends of friends”? I have noticed, for example, that in the past the “friends” privacy setting meant only your own friends could see something, and not friends of people tagged in that post/photo. However, Facebook seems to have changed this and if you select “friends” today it will mean it is visible to your own friends AND friends of people marked in the post. You need to specifically go to “custom” to turn this off and make it visible to just your own friends.
The key is whether a given post on your timeline is tagged with the names of other Facebook friends. In that case, yes — even after using the “limit the audience” tool, a tagged post will be visible to the friends of anyone tagged in the post, including people who aren’t your direct FB friends. That’s different from the “friends of friends” setting, however, in which a post would be visible to all your friends plus ALL of their FB friends, no matter who is (or isn’t) tagged. Yeah, pretty confusing…
So once you’ve limited it, how do you give the people you’ve limited access later on to those past posts?