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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, past romantic partners, and reminders of your lack of style in 2008. You could decide it's finally time to delete your entire account outright. Otherwise, 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. Open the three-dot menu on your Facebook profile 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's 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.
(Credit: PCMag / Meta)How to Delete Facebook Posts
The easiest way to delete a Facebook post is to simply locate the item, 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.
(Credit: PCMag / Meta)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.
(Credit: PCMag / Meta)Facebook also has a tool to hide public Timeline posts en masse. To do this, navigate to Settings & Privacy > Settings > Default audience settings and select Friends or Custom to put limitations on who can view your posts.
(Credit: PCMag / Meta)Got a step further and do a Privacy Checkup under Settings & privacy > Privacy Checkup > Who can see what you share. Go through the screens and select Limit next to Limit past posts. You'll see a warning advising that all your public posts will be converted to Friends only. If that's okay, click the Limit button to make all public posts visible to just those on your friends list.
(Credit: PCMag / Meta)Use the Activity Log to Find Posts
Having trouble tracking down specific posts? Facebook's Activity log can help. 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. Results can be filtered by date or person.
Facebook breaks your activity down into different categories and subcategories, so you can find exactly what you need. For instance, you can select Posts to see everything you've posted, or further drill down in order to see just text, photos, and videos posted to your Timeline or your posts on someone else's page.
(Credit: PCMag / Meta)When you come across something you want to remove, select the three-dot menu to delete, hide, or archive a post, unlike a comment, unfriend a person, or remove a 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 to see a timeline of every action you've taken on the platform.
(Credit: PCMag / Meta)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 > Download Facebook Information. You'll be transferred to Meta's Accounts Center; click the Download or transfer information link to begin.
From here, select the profile and pieces of data you wish to download. Once a file is created, it can be redownloaded from the Available files tab. You can also transfer certain data to other platforms.
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