According to statistics, Facebook consists of 3.065 billion monthly active users worldwide, which means an enormous amount of data in the form of photos, videos, and posts travels every day on this platform. Just imagine how much chances are there for people to have cyber threats via some privacy loopholes on Facebook.
If you want to make your information (photos or posts) more private in a single step, then profile locking is the ultimate solution introduced by Facebook a while ago to protect your account. This enhances the safety and privacy by blocking the stalkers. If you officially lock your Facebook profile, then only friends will see all your content but not the public (anyone). Read our article to get a clear idea of how to lock it and what changes we have to make to the account.
What Happens If Someone Has Locked Their Profile?
Locking their Facebook profile means that a person limits the view of their profile content to people (or the public) who are not friends on Facebook. Simply, they only let their friends (sometimes friends of friends) see the following thing:
- Posts and photos on their profile
- Their stories
- Their full-size profile picture or cover photo
- New photos and posts
- Any posts shared in the past with public access changed to Friends.
- Only some of their About information is visible to everyone on their profile.
- Turned on their profile review and tag review.
How To Officially Lock Facebook Profile
Whether you are using Facebook on a PC/laptop or smartphone (Android or iOS), here is the step-by-step procedure to safely lock your profile on Facebook for privacy issues.
Using Smartphones:
Below are the two methods that help you to officially lock your Facebook profile either on your Android or iPhone.
- Open the Facebook app on your phone.
- Tap on the three vertical lines menu (☰) option at the bottom-right corner.
- Select the “Settings & Privacy” option at the bottom of the menu.
- In this list, tap on “Settings” and then go to the ‘Audience and visibility’
- Select “Profile Locking” and tap on the “Lock Your Profile option” and FB confirms that you locked your profile.
- Finally, tap on the “OK” to complete the process, and a sign will appear after your name on the profile page as –
- Viola! Your profile is locked officially.
- However, this feature isn’t available everywhere at the moment. You can only lock your profile in certain countries.
Using PC/Laptop:
- After logging in to your Facebook account using your username and password on your system.
- Click on the profile picture (Accounts) at the top right corner.
- Select the “Settings & Privacy” option and then click on “Settings”.
- In the left corner of the page, you can find some options under Settings & Privacy.
- Scroll down till you find the “Audience and Visibility” section, where you can control who can see what you share on Facebook.
- Click on the “Profile locking” option and you will be redirected to another page.
- Then select “Lock your profile” to officially lock your profile and make your photos and posts more private in one step.
- Now Facebook confirms that you’ve locked your profile, and click on “OK” as final confirmation.
Another Simple Procedure
On Smartphones:
- Open the Facebook app on your phone.
- Tap on the three vertical lines Menu (☰)
- Tap on your profile picture and then tap on three horizontal dots (…) besides +Add to story and Edit profile.
- You will be redirected to Profile Settings and then tap on Lock Profile.
- Select the Lock Your Profile option and click OK to confirm.
On Desktop:
- Open Facebook using your login credentials.
- Click on the Accounts in the top-right corner (profile pic).
- Select the name and click on the upper arrow (⋀).
- Find three horizontal dots (…) in the profile section and click on them.
- Select Lock profile and click on Lock your profile.
- Finally, select OK to confirm it.
How To Lock Profile Without Profile Locking Option
Facebook’s profile lock feature, which restricts post, photo, and story visibility to friends only, isn’t universally available. While some countries have access, others, including the USA, Canada, and the UK, currently do not. This raises the question: how can users in unsupported regions secure their content and limit visibility to their friends? How can they effectively hide posts, stories, and profile pictures from the public?
In case, Facebook’s profile lock feature isn’t available in your region, you can still manually enhance your profile’s privacy. After successfully logging in, access the menu (represented by your profile picture) and select “Settings & Privacy,” followed by “Settings.” Within the settings menu, look for “Audience and Visibility.” This section allows you to control who can see your Facebook content. Then here comes the key tips to perform to keep the account safe and secure.
- Select the How People Find and Contact You option and change the settings as per your requirements (from public to friends or friends of friends).
- Come back and tap on Followers and Public Content, and there you have to change the option of who can see the posts, Pages, followers on Timeline, follow me, Public post comments, and public post notifications from public to only friends (as per your requirement).
- Also, tap on Posts -> View under Limit who can see past posts -> select Limit Past Posts to limit who can see past posts on your timeline.
- Tap on Stories -> Story Privacy -> Select Friends on Who can see your story.
- Select Profile and Tagging and make necessary changes as per your requirements to secure your privacy and safety.
Another Simple Method
- Follow the same procedure till you get into “Settings” (as mentioned above).
- Then select “Privacy Checkup” under the ‘Tools and Resources’
- Under this Privacy Checkup (which lets you guide through some settings to make the right choices for your account), select two main options – “Who can see what you share” and “How People can find you on Facebook”.
- Prefer to change the profile information settings from public to friends or only me.
- Edit the About section of your profile to restrict sensitive information. Always set visibility for each category to Friends or Only Me.
- Additionally, be cautious with friend requests. Don’t accept random friend requests and always review friend requests and remove anyone you won’t trust or recognize. Get complete control over who can friend and follow you.
- Furthermore, stop Search Engine from finding your profile in the privacy settings. For this, select the disable option to allow search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile.
- Also, turn on tag review and profile picture guard.
How To Unlock Facebook Profile
In case you want to unlock the Facebook profile, then simply follow this procedure, either on a laptop/PC or smartphone.
- Simply log in to your Facebook account with your username and password.
- Tap on the profile page and select three horizontal dots (…)
- Select the “Unlock profile” option and a new popup appears that says your profile is locked and provides two options – View as (or) Unlock option.
- OR simply click on this – “You’ve locked your profile (Learn more)” under your profile page.
- Then select “Unlock” and FB asks for the unlock confirmation, and you need to click on “Unlock your profile”.
- Finally, click on “OK” to unlock your profile officially. Thus, more people may see the photos and posts on your timeline.
How Locking And Unlocking Works
Locking your Facebook profile gives you more control over who sees your content. Here’s how locking and unlocking works:
- When your profile is locked – Only your friends can see your photos, posts, and stories (past, present, and future), along with seeing your full-size profile picture and cover photo. People can still find you in searches, see posts you’re tagged in, and send you friend requests.
- Unlocking your Profile – Your privacy settings will revert to what they were when you first locked your profile. Changes you made after locking will remain. More people may see your photos, posts, stories, full-size profile picture, and a cover photo. Also, you’ll be able to share posts publicly again.
FAQs:
Facebook doesn’t allow its users to see who has viewed their profile, even not offered by third-party apps. So, you are unable to see who has viewed your profile.
If you want to protect your FB profile, then perform these actions, including regular privacy checkups, profile review, occasional changing passwords, and turning on profile picture guard and story privacy will protect your FB profile from unwanted attention.
Some countries like Australia, India, Egypt, Iraq, Morocco, Myanmar, New Zealand, Sudan, Turkey, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Pakistan can easily lock their profiles.
Yes, locking your FB profile will definitely increase the safety of online social media interactions. This is particularly useful in saving people from potential stalkers, who take advantage by gathering your personal information.
Conclusion
Locking your Facebook profile is a straightforward option to stay safe and enjoy your privacy while posting anything on Facebook. Whether your Facebook allows for direct profile locking or setting security and privacy from the public to Friends (or Only Me). We hope our guide has provided all the key information to officially lock your Facebook profile.
Do you have any queries related to Facebook? Then feel free to share them with us in the comments section, and we’ll respond promptly to resolve them.
