(Credit: M-SUR / Adobe Stock)
Facebook is all too keen to remind you of the past. Remember that concert you went to six years ago? That person you friended nine years ago? That photo you snapped on vacation in 2012? No worries; Facebook will make sure you never forget.
But now more than ever, it's important to curate what pops up on your social media feeds, lest a potential employer or date stumble upon an ill-advised photo, comment, or like.
If you're sick of cringing every time you log into Facebook, it might be time to rid your account of aging memes and reminders of your lack of style in 2008. You don't have to delete your entire account, though. Here's a better solution if you want to undergo a social media cleanup.
Review Your Facebook Profile
First, it may be informative to see what your profile looks like to people who aren't on your friends list. Go to your Facebook profile, open the three-dot menu and select the View As "eye" icon. This will display your profile as it looks to the general public, by showing everything on your profile that is set to Public.
From here, you can see what people will be able to see and then figure out what should be hidden or deleted. Select Exit View As at the top of the page (Exit View on mobile) to leave this view.
How to Delete Facebook Posts
The easiest way to delete a Facebook post is to simply locate the item and select the three-dot menu and choose either Move to archive or Move to trash. While the first option will delete the post immediately, the second will send it to the trash, where it will stay for 30 days.
How to Hide Facebook Posts
It's possible to limit the visibility of old photos and posts by making them private instead of deleting them entirely. From your Timeline, click the ellipsis next to the post you want to hide, select Edit Audience (Edit Privacy on mobile), then select who should have permission to view the post.
Choose Only me to hide it from everyone else. To only hide the post from certain people, select Friends except... or Specific friends... to include or exclude certain people. You can also choose Custom to use a combination of inclusions and exclusions.
Facebook also has a tool to hide public Timeline posts en masse. To do this, navigate to Settings & Privacy > Settings > Privacy, then head to the Your Activity section and click the Limit Past Posts link. On mobile, tap your profile icon, then choose the settings gear and select Profile settings > Privacy > Limit who can see past posts.
You will open to a warning advising that all your public posts will be converted to Friends only. If that's okay, click the Limit Past Posts button and your public posts will only be visible to those on your friends list.
Use the Activity Log to Find Posts
Facebook makes it easy to delete or hide your old posts with the Activity Log. Go to your profile, click the three-dot menu, and select Activity Log. This will show you every action you, or another user, has taken on your Timeline, including reactions, shares, comments, tags, and posts. The results can be filtered by date or a specific person.
Facebook breaks your activity down into different categories and subcategories, so you can find exactly what you need. For instance, you can select Your posts to see everything you have posted, or further drill down in order to see just photos and videos or just text updates.
When you come across something you want to remove, select the three-dot menu to delete, hide, or archive; unlike a comment; or remove tag. You can even change the audience for individual actions to make them only visible to certain people.
You can also just choose Activity history (View Activity History on mobile) to see a timeline of every action you have taken on the platform. However, note that you can only remove multiple posts at a time from individual categories.
Download Your Facebook Data
Don't want to lose your Facebook information forever? You can download a copy of your entire Facebook Timeline by navigating to Settings & Privacy > Settings > Privacy > Your Facebook Information. Select the View link next to Download profile information.
Choose what should and should not be included in the download, then click Create Files to download your Facebook information to your computer. Once a file is created, it can always be redownloaded from the Available files tab. You can also transfer certain data to other platforms.
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