How to Make Highlights on Facebook Private: The Definitive Guide

Making your Facebook Highlights private is a straightforward process, allowing you to curate who sees your cherished memories. To control the visibility of your Facebook Highlights, you need to adjust the privacy settings of each individual story before it’s added to a highlight. Here’s the process:

1. Create Your Story: Before archiving it as a Highlight, set its privacy settings. When creating a new story, tap on the “Public” icon at the bottom of the screen.
2. Customize Audience: Choose who can view your story. You can select “Friends,” “Friends except…” (to exclude specific people), or “Custom” (to share with only certain friends).
3. Add to Highlight: After setting your desired privacy, add the story to a Highlight. The Highlight will then inherit the privacy settings of the story it contains.

Keep in mind that changing the privacy settings of a story after it’s been added to a Highlight will not retroactively change the Highlight’s privacy. You’d have to delete the story from the Highlight and re-add it with the desired privacy settings. Let’s dive deeper into the nuances of this feature.

Understanding Facebook Highlights

Facebook Highlights, also known as Featured Stories, allow you to showcase your best Facebook Stories beyond their initial 24-hour lifespan. They’re prominently displayed on your profile, giving visitors a glimpse into your personality and experiences. However, just like any other form of content on Facebook, you might want to control who gets to see these curated collections of your life. Understanding how privacy settings work within the Highlights feature is crucial for maintaining your desired level of online privacy.

The Importance of Privacy Settings

In an era where online privacy is increasingly important, controlling who sees your content is paramount. Maybe you don’t want potential employers seeing your weekend antics, or perhaps you prefer to keep certain aspects of your life private from distant relatives. Whatever your reason, Facebook provides the tools to manage your privacy – you just need to know how to use them. With Highlights, the ability to showcase your moments comes with the need to ensure that these moments are visible only to your intended audience.

Step-by-Step Guide to Making Highlights Private

While you can’t directly set the privacy of an existing Highlight collection, the key is to manage the privacy of the individual stories that make up the Highlight before you add them.

1. Creating a Story: Start by creating a new story. This is where you set the stage for privacy.
2. Setting Story Privacy:
   • When creating the story, look for the “Public” option, typically located at the bottom left of your screen.
   • Tap on it to reveal the privacy options.
   • Choose from the following:
     • Public: Visible to everyone, even those not on your friends list.
     • Friends: Visible only to your Facebook friends.
     • Friends Except: Allows you to specifically exclude certain friends from seeing the story.
     • Specific Friends: Allows you to only show the story to specific friends.
     • Custom: Create a custom list of people who can view your story.
3. Adding to Highlights: Once you’ve set your desired privacy setting, post the Story and then add it to the Highlight. The Highlight will inherit the chosen audience settings.

Managing Existing Highlights

If you already have Highlights and want to adjust their privacy, you’ll need to approach it indirectly:

1. Deleting the Story from the Highlight: To change the Highlight’s audience, you must remove any story that contains privacy settings you want to change. Go to the Highlight and delete each individual story with the old privacy setting you want to change.
2. Check the individual Story’s privacy settings: Once you’ve removed the story from the Highlight, ensure the story has the desired privacy settings.
3. Re-add the Story: If the story has the proper privacy settings, re-add the story to the Highlight.

This might seem tedious, but it’s the only way to retroactively adjust the privacy of your Highlights.

Best Practices for Facebook Highlights Privacy

To ensure your Facebook Highlights are as private (or as public) as you intend them to be, consider these best practices:

• Review Regularly: Periodically review your Highlight settings, especially after Facebook updates its privacy policies.
• Be Mindful of Tagged Content: If you are tagged in a Story that is added to a Highlight, the privacy settings of the person who posted the Story will apply, not yours.
• Consistency is Key: Be consistent with your privacy settings across all your Stories to avoid unintentional visibility.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. Can I make an entire Highlight collection private with one click?

Unfortunately, no. Facebook doesn’t offer a one-click solution to make an entire Highlight collection private. You must manage the privacy settings of each individual story before adding it to the Highlight or remove the story from the Highlight and then re-add it with the appropriate privacy settings.

2. What happens if I tag someone in a Story added to a Highlight?

When you tag someone in a Story, the visibility of that Story depends on the privacy settings you’ve chosen and the tagged person’s own privacy settings. Your friends and the friends of the tagged person may be able to see the Story, depending on the individual Story privacy settings.

3. If I change my overall Facebook privacy settings, will it affect my existing Highlights?

No, changing your general Facebook privacy settings won’t automatically affect your existing Highlights. Highlights retain the privacy settings of the individual stories they contain at the time they were created.

4. How do I know who can see my Highlights?

The best way to know for sure who can see your Highlights is to review the privacy settings of each story within the Highlight. You can do this by viewing each story individually and checking its visibility settings.

5. Can I hide a specific Highlight from one particular person?

Yes, you can. When creating the story, select “Friends Except…” in the privacy settings. Then, list that person. By choosing “Friends Except…”, you can exclude specific individuals from seeing your Story, and therefore, the Highlight that contains that Story.

6. If someone isn’t my Facebook friend, can they still see my Highlights?

If your Story has a “Public” setting and is then added to a Highlight, someone who isn’t your friend can see that Highlight. However, if the Story settings are set to “Friends,” only your friends will be able to view it, regardless of whether it’s in a Highlight.

7. Can I see who has viewed my Highlights?

Facebook only shows who has viewed your original stories within the 24-hour period. Once a story is added to a Highlight, you can no longer see specifically who viewed it within the Highlight.

8. How often should I review my Highlight privacy settings?

It’s a good idea to review your Highlight privacy settings at least once a quarter, or whenever Facebook updates its privacy policies. It is also a good idea to conduct the review more frequently if you change or update the stories you add to your Highlights on a regular basis.

9. Can I create a Highlight that’s only visible to me?

Yes, you can create a Story using the “Specific Friends” option and only select yourself as the viewer. If you then add that story to a Highlight, the Highlight will effectively be visible only to you.

10. What happens to my Highlights if I deactivate my Facebook account?

If you deactivate your Facebook account, your profile, including your Highlights, will no longer be visible to others. If you reactivate your account, your Highlights will reappear as they were before deactivation.

11. Are Facebook Highlights indexed by search engines?

Generally, no. Facebook Highlights are not designed to be indexed by search engines. They are intended for viewing within the Facebook platform.

12. Can I download my Facebook Highlights?

Facebook does not directly offer a feature to download entire Highlights as a single file. However, you can manually download each individual story within a Highlight if you wish to save them offline.