The 5-Minute Facebook Privacy Checkup: What to Review and Change

Facebook settings sprawl across dozens of screens, and most people never look at them after signing up. The good news is that Facebook bundles the most important ones into a guided tool called Privacy Checkup. If you have five minutes, you can review the settings that matter most without hunting through menus. This guide tells you what each part does and which choices we suggest for parents and for teens who use Facebook.

How to open Privacy Checkup

1. Open Facebook in the app or a browser.
2. Tap or click your profile picture (or the menu icon, depending on your device).
3. Choose Settings & privacy.
4. Select Privacy Checkup.

You'll see a set of topic cards. Each one is a short guided flow. You can do them in any order and stop at any time; changes save as you go. Facebook reorganizes menus regularly, so if the name or location differs slightly on your screen, use the search bar at the top of Settings and type "Privacy Checkup."

Minute 1: Who can see what you share

This card covers your profile details and your posts.

• Profile information. Review who can see your phone number, email address, birthday, hometown and relationship status. For most families, we suggest Only me for phone and email, and Friends or Only me for birthday and location details.
• Posts and stories. Set the default audience for future posts. Friends is a sensible default. Public posts can be seen by anyone, on or off Facebook.
• Limit past posts. This one-time option switches everything you've ever shared as Public or Friends of friends to Friends. It's a quick fix for old posts you've forgotten about. Note it can't easily be undone in one step; you'd have to change posts individually.
• Blocking. Review the people you've blocked, and add anyone you need to.

Minute 2: How to keep your account secure

Security is privacy. If someone takes over your account, every setting you chose stops mattering.

• Use a strong, unique password that you don't use anywhere else.
• Turn on two-factor authentication, so a login needs a code from an authentication app, a text message or a security key as well as your password.
• Turn on login alerts, so you're told when someone logs in from a device Facebook doesn't recognize. We explain these in more detail in our guide to Facebook login notifications.

Some of these settings open in Meta's Accounts Center, which manages security across Facebook, Instagram and Messenger in one place.

Minute 3: How people can find you on Facebook

This card controls who can reach you.

• Friend requests. Choose Everyone or Friends of friends. Friends of friends cuts down requests from strangers and scam accounts.
• Phone number and email lookup. Decide who can find your profile using your phone number or email address. Only me or Friends keeps strangers from finding you through contact uploads.
• Search engines. Depending on the version you see, this card may include whether search engines outside Facebook can link to your profile. Turn it off if you'd rather your name search didn't lead straight to your profile. Our guide to keeping your Facebook profile off search engines explains what that setting does and doesn't hide.

Minute 4: Your data settings on Facebook

This card shows the apps and websites you've logged into with Facebook.

• Remove anything you no longer use. Old quiz apps, games and shopping sites may still have permission to see parts of your profile.
• For apps you keep, check what information each one can access.

If you'd like to go deeper on this, our article on Facebook app privacy and how your data is shared covers the full Apps and websites settings and Meta's controls for activity from other businesses.

Minute 5: Your ad preferences

This card covers how your information is used for ads.

• Review which profile information (such as relationship status or employer) can be used to show you ads.
• Check the ad topics you see and reduce ones you don't want, such as alcohol, gambling or dating.
• Look at whether ads can be shown based on your activity with partner businesses.

None of these settings stop ads altogether, but they do change how personalized they are and what appears.

A note for parents of teens on Facebook

Teens 13 to 17 on Facebook are placed in Teen Accounts, which Meta extended from Instagram to Facebook and Messenger starting in April 2025. Teen Accounts start with more protective settings: posts, friend lists and other audience settings default to Friends, and messaging is limited to friends and people they've already been in contact with. Teens under 16 need a parent's approval to loosen these settings.

It's still worth sitting down with your teen and going through Privacy Checkup together. It takes five minutes, it shows them where the controls are, and it turns a lecture into a practical task. If you're still deciding whether your child should be on Facebook at all, our guide Kids on Facebook: yes, no or maybe? walks through the age rules and trade-offs.

Your five-minute checklist

• Phone number and email visible to Only me.
• Default post audience set to Friends.
• Run Limit past posts once if you've been on Facebook for years.
• Two-factor authentication on, login alerts on.
• Friend requests limited to Friends of friends.
• Lookup by phone and email limited to Friends or Only me.
• Unused apps and websites removed.
• Ad topics you don't want to see reduced.
• Calendar reminder to rerun Privacy Checkup in six months.