How to hide your friends on Facebook?





I received an email from Jojo asking the following question:

I have lots of friends on Facebook. The thing is that i am not really interested in showing off those friends to the world. Is there a way to hide Friends on Facebook?

Thanks for Asking Jojo. It is possible to restrict access to your friends list on Facebook and even to hide it completely.

Below you can find the steps for hiding your friends list following the new profile privacy settings deployed by Facebook on December 2009:

  • Go to your Facebook profile
  • In the upper right hand side of your Friends section of your profile page, you will notice a small pencil icon – Hit it.
  • Uncheck the box that reads “Show my friends list”. – and that’s it – Your Facebook friends will not show up in your profile any more.

You might want to know that once you migrate your profile to the Facebook privacy settings your Friend List is always visible to your Friends.

I am currently tying to find out whether hiding the friends list from certain people (or certain networks) on Facebook is still possible. Seems not. Guys, any feedback/insight from those who are on the new Privacy settings?




Let's keep in touch! Join us on Facebook or Subscribe to our RSS feed and get regular updates on the latest tips and tricks.



Filed Under: Facebook Tips





Help us spread the word. Share this post with your friends and peers.

   

    Stumble     Stumble     Digg     Twitter     Subscribe



Other useful related answers:



RSSComments (45)

Leave a Reply | Trackback URL

  1. Meena says:

    Please can you help me how to hide my friends list from my friends? I tired to follow the steps but still friends list is visible I don’t know why please plzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz help me out

  2. janetbob says:

    You can’t hide it completely. The most restriction you could do is only make it visible to your friends and none of your networks, and then additionally to any names you list on the “Except These People” box.

  3. janetbob says:

    You can’t hide it completely. The most restriction you can do is to have it visible to only friends and none of your networks, and then additionally make it invisible to names you add in the “Except These People” box.

  4. Chris says:

    This answer does not help. The limitation with this is that every single friend you add, you must then go back in to your privacy settings and add this friend to this “custom list” if you don’t want them seeing your current friend list.

    In the meanwhile, this new friend will be able to see your friend list, which defeats the point entirely.

    There should be an option for “Only Me” in who can view my friend list. Perhaps one day Facebook Developers will add this.

    Chris

  5. Albara says:

    there is a trick that you can follow .. which is add all of your friends into lists or groups .. like (Family),(College),(Co-Workers),(annoying people) .. etc. that way you can add the entire list or group int the [Except] field .. which will to the trick ..

    and every time you add a new friend, just classify them on one of your lists .. an they will never see your friends list ever :)

  6. reggie says:

    ok i see above what to do but where is the ” except field”??
    How do we let Facebook know that they just need to add a button that says ” just me ” so that only the owner of the sight can veiw friends???
    help!!!

  7. Zee says:

    How do I stop people who aren’t logged in from seeing my friendlist?

    When I access my facebook profile while not logged in I can see:

    Here are some of Zee’s friends:

    and

    Zee is a fan of:Games
    Sid Meier’s Civilization Network

    How do I make my profile anonymous to people who aren’t logged in?

  8. james says:

    they have changed the rules so now everyone you didnt want to see your friends list and other stuff can now see it :S

    help

  9. Anonymous says:

    How can you hide friends on this new facebook settings?my friends was hidden before with a friend list but now it doesn’t work.anybody know how to do it???

  10. blablu says:

    How can you hide friends on this new facebook settings?my friends was hidden before with a friend list but now it doesn’t work.anybody know how to do it???

  11. Oslo says:

    Could it be that this feature is no longer available?
    i can’t find any friends box in the profile information sectiion of the privacy setings. help much appreciated

  12. TRINH says:

    It sure looks it. :[ I don’t want my friends to be displayed to the whole world either.. I mean you can disable almost everything on the profile.. BUT friends. LAME. |:<

  13. taylor says:

    I found the answer to how to hide friends. You click the pencil just right above the list and unclick the ’show friends’. It will no longer show publicly. :]

  14. random_me says:

    i think they did leave out the option and feature to hide the friends list when people search for you who aren’t your friends. completely ridiculous. i’ve been searching and trying to get it off from the search and even though in the facebook help section they say how to do it….the actual feature is missing. maybe they will fix it soon??? i’m starting to regret not skipping the new security feature….

  15. random_me says:

    I FIGURED IT OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    ok so when random people search for you on this new facebook security whatever they can still see your friends so to not let them see and hide your list on the search page the option isn’t even in the privacy settings at all!!!

    go to your profile and then go onto the Info tab. look where it lists your friend list and then in the upper right corner where you can edit with the little pencil icon or whatever click that and then there will be a box that says ’show my friends on my profile’. UNCLICK that box. once you have that box unclicked people who search for you will no longer be able to see your friends list!!!!!!

    i have yet to figure out the pages i’m a fan of and how to hide that….

  16. Cate says:

    figured it out….on your profile under the info tab find your friend list that is shown on your page. then in the upper right corner edit and make sure the show my friends is unclicked. now people will not be able to see your friend list if they search for you or aren’t your friend unless other security features are set otherwise.

  17. blablu says:

    It seems you can hide your friends from everybody by ticking the pencil on your profile in the friends box,but you can only hide it from everybody or leave it for everyone to see your friends, there is not option to just hide your friends from certain people :-(

  18. mad pig says:

    THank you all! Desperate to hide friends list from ex hubby!

  19. sss says:

    i have unchecked this several times and tho it does not SHOW the small icons for my friends there is still a #of Friends shown and also SeeAll ………wtf????

    there must be a way to totally hide this..i have seen a few profiles with all of it hidden….

    any ideas?

  20. sss says:

    let me clarify what i am looking to do:

    I want to be the ONLY one who has access to my Friends list and also my groups/etc….

    Will there ever be any way to block the public AND your own list from digging through my data???

  21. sss says:

    ok….one profile I just looked at has the TOTAL friends area totally hidden and only the Mutual Friends list is showing…..and when you click View All you see [i assume] ONLY the friends you have mutually between the 2 profles, not the total # of friends…..

    HOW??????

  22. ccc says:

    @sss just go to your profile. where the pencil is beside the word ‘friends’, click it, then uncheck the ’show my friends on my profile’ box. it will then just show mutual friends to whoever looks on your list.

  23. Jahan says:

    I have the same problem with my friends only seeing mutual friends. I don’t know how it came to this….

  24. christine says:

    hate the changes so much. There is no longer privacy. I can’t even hide my list of friends from certain people anymore. It’s either hide all or none. Facebook has been sued over privacy issues. I honestly hope they get sued again. I’m so frustrated. Thanks to this article. I can at least hide all my friends temporarily till facebook does more stupid ridiculous changes!!

  25. buny says:

    they didn’t click the update box

    we are screwed now i guess

  26. ed says:

    This does not work – facebook has not implemented a fix nor do they have one planned before 2010. Unchecking the box labeled in this post will do nothing. You can test it out. I had certain groups blocked for ages prior to the new update and now verifying with secondary accounts regardless of what you do the list will still show up

  27. jim says:

    @sss: It seems they’re still using the old privacy settings. Lucky them!

    Facebook is no longer my favorite social networking website…

  28. sharon says:

    You can no longer hide your friends from your friends, period. That box you are all talking about has a note below in light grey that reads: “NOTE: your friends can always see your friends.”

  29. want to hide friends too says:

    I agree, I also cannot hide friends list… I had the old settings until today when I accidentely started to use the new settings.
    I don’t think my friends should see my other friends…
    PLease give back the privacy setting

  30. Easy Tweaks says:

    @sharon – you are correct. Thanks for the heads up.

  31. ahh ! says:

    stupid facebook, i don’t think i can hide my friends list from people that aren’t my friend anymore..
    if i can, can somebody help me out ?
    there are people that i don’t want to see it…
    eeeek ):

  32. pera says:

    How they can claim more security when is actually less. Blocking friends list from being visible to each other was one of the basic security setting which is not available any longer. this came to my attention completely by chance and it happen without warning that any change will be made to my previous setting. I had to temporally deactivate my account until this issue is sorted out.

  33. How To Hide Facebook Friend List?…

    Want to keep privacy who is in your Facebook friend list? Facebook announced new privacy settings that give user have additional control over what information to share.
    I use Facebook to make friends and easier communication with family. It is not for …

  34. RIDICULOUS says:

    The little pencil icon does not work. I’ve had friends check to see if they could see both mutual friends and all other friends and they could. I went to preview profile under some of my friends names and they can see it all. There is no way to hide this list as of today and that just sucks! Instead of helping with privacy the FB team has opened up our info to everyone.

  35. ks booi says:

    i hate the changes they made , i want to hide friends from specify people on facebook so now i cant do that cuz they have changed the rules

    is there any chance that they bringing back the old rules about hiding friends :S

  36. Shaun says:

    I’ve had to deactivate my account until this problem is fixed. As a gay man I don’t want my family seeing my gay friends on my profile, before I could control the two, now it’s impossible.

    This problem really needs looking into and fast :(

  37. Anonymous says:

    I have to agree. One should be able to make some friends invisible from other friends in facebook. Facebook needs to get with the times. They are as lame as can be.

  38. Matt says:

    Facebook is horrible. I hate the new “privacy” settings and so do a lot of people. I am soooo tempted to delete my account. These new changes to the privacy settings have real impacts in real life. Facebook needs to be sued over this.

  39. Dill says:

    Thats bull crap. My mom found out my gf was pregnant before we were going to tell her after the first trimester cause shes my friend and by clicking see all on my profile she could see my gfs status updates even though she wasnt her friend too. I hate you facebook!

  40. Anon says:

    Thanks! It worked.

  41. Tara says:

    oh my gosh! thank you!

  42. Anonymous says:

    thank you for the help

  43. Linda says:

    Why cant i hide my friends from seeing my friend list???? others have this feature???? WE’re is the privacy???

  44. Anonymous says:

    Just go to your profile and click the pencil above your friends list, then unclick the box that will hide your friends from ppl who arent your freinds

  45. Joannie says:

    We get that part. What most people want is the option to hide your friendslist from your friends. I deleted my account in December because of this and still they haven’t changed it back. I doubt they will :-(

Leave a Reply