“The wiser your friends are, the stronger and steadier character you build for yourself.”- This is a very common proverb we’ve heard since childhood. However, in today’s modern world of digitization, we all need privacy and authority to keep our secrets to ourselves. Especially when it comes to social media, secrets are essential for our own security. As we all tend to share almost anything and everything on social media, keeping certain things to ourselves is necessary. As per the concern of this article, I can see that you’re seeking help regarding “how to hide friends on Facebook?” This means you don’t want your friends or any other profile visitors to go through your friend list. Actually, by default, Facebook allows all your profile visitors to check everything, starting from your photos to your friend list until you yourself change the settings manually.
On the other hand, the Settings portion of the Facebook platform isn’t always very user-friendly for all. Therefore, if you’re not very tech-savvy, configuring your profile might seem like a brainstorming task to you. Therefore, go through our step-by-step guidance in order to successfully hide friends on Facebook.
How to Hide Friends on Facebook (From Everyone)
Some people want to hide their friend-list due to their own private reasons, and the rest are probably trying to secure their friends from unethical practices. You can straightaway change your Profile Privacy Settings to keep your friend-list open to yourself only. So this is the basic route you can follow if you want none – absolutely nobody – to check who your friends are on Facebook.
Configure Friend-List From PC
There are different individual methods to configure Facebook Privacy insights from a PC and from a Mobile setup. Here are the guidelines you can conduct on your PC to keep your friends away from your friend-list.
Step 1: Open your web browser, type Facebook.com and hit Enter.
Step 2: Select the menu option from the top-right corner and choose Settings.
Step 3: Navigate to the left column and choose Privacy.
Step 4: Navigate to the “How People Can Find and Contact You” section and hit the “Who can see your friends’ list” option.
Step 5: As soon as the drop-down menu opens up, select whom you want to give authority to check your friend-list. There are options like –
- Public – Your friend-list is open to everyone.
- Friends – Only your friends on Facebook can check your friend-list.
- Only Me – Your friend-list is open to none except yourself.
- Custom – This is the section where you can decide exactly which friends can and cannot see your friend list.
As far as you’ve decided to hide your Facebook friend-list from all, choose the “Only Me” option and click Save.
Step 6: Hit Close from the right and exit Settings.
Thus you have been able to come up with the right solution to ‘how to hide friends on Facebook?’ via your PC. If you want to do it from your mobile device, move to the next method.
Configure Friend-list From Mobile
The mobile setup for Facebook is almost similar except the customization options. Other than enabling a custom list of people to check your friend-list, the mobile platform offers a few more varieties of pre-configuration options. Here is a complete guide to help you configure the visibility of your Facebook friend-list from your Android and iPhone devices.
Step 1: Open the Facebook App on your phone.
Step 2: Click the menu option appearing as the three horizontal lines on the bottom-right corner on the iPhone and top-right for Android.
Step 3: Select Settings & Privacy.
Step 4: Choose Settings.
Step 5: Select “Who can see your friends list?” and several options will open up on your screen.
Step 6: Click More and then See All to explore the entire list of options.
- Public – Your friend-list is open to everyone.
- Friends – Only your friends on Facebook can check your friend-list.
- Only Me – Your friend-list is open to none except yourself.
- Friends Except: Except for the friends you select, everyone can explore your friend-list.
- Specific Friends: Only the Facebook friends your select will be able to check your friend-list.
- Specific Lists: This is the option where you can choose a group of people like your close friends or your locality friends who’ll only be seeing your Facebook friend-list.
As far as you’ve decided to hide your Facebook friend-list from all, choose the “Only Me” option and click Save.
Step 7: Tap the back button to exit settings after saving your options.
So these were the steps to hide you with how to hide friends on Facebook. Thus none of the others except you can check your friend list. In case you still want to keep your Facebook friend-list open to some specific friends, you can customize the option and do so accordingly.
How to Hide Friends on Facebook (From One to Another)
As I mentioned earlier, it isn’t always necessary to hide your Facebook friend-list from absolutely everyone. You can take a different route as well; you customize the option a little bit. At this point in time, there is no such option to prevent two of your Facebook friends from seeing each other while both being on your friend list. However, you can get it done in another way by denying both the individuals access to your friend list.
Therefore, whatever the reason is, if you wish to hide any of your Facebook friends from another, you can follow the instructions thoroughly –
Step 1: Log in to your Facebook account and land on your own profile page.
Step 2: Click the Friends tab to open your Facebook friend-list.
Step 3: Navigate to the pencil icon on the top right corner and click on it as it shows Edit Privacy.
Step 4: Select “Who can see your friends list?” and several options will open up on your screen.
Step 5: Click the Custom option.
Step 6: Click “Don’t share with” on the Custom Privacy window and enter the names of both your friends whom you want to hide from each other and choose their profiles, respectively. If it’s only one person whom you want to hide your Facebook friend-list from, enter the name and select the exact profile.
Step 7: Select Save Changes.
Alternatively Method
Here is another route you can explore for the same purpose.
Step 1: Log in to your Facebook account and land on your own profile page.
Step 2: Click the Friends tab to open your Facebook friend-list.
Step 3: Navigate to the pencil icon on the top right corner and click on it as it shows Edit Privacy.
Step 4: Choose Friends except… from the dropdown. Enter the names of both your friends whom you want to hide from each other and choose their profiles, respectively. If it’s only one person whom you want to hide your Facebook friend-list from, enter the name and select the exact profile.
Step 5: Hit the Save Changes button.
In both cases, you’ll be able to hide your Facebook friend list from both people. Except for them, everyone else can access your friend list on Facebook. In case there are more than two people you want to hide from each other, the procedure remains the same. Just type in the names of all of them and click the Save Changes button. Thus you’ve got the right solutions to “how to hide friends on Facebook?”
Things to Remember
After you go through the procedures thoroughly as per your profile needs, you can definitely restrict some or all your friends to explore your friend-list. However, let me reassure you that there are still certain ways how people can uncover a few of your Facebook friends. Despite following the steps on ‘how to hide friends on Facebook?’ it will be quite disappointing for you to know that nothing is truly hidden on social media.
In case your friends have friend-lists open to all, your name will be clearly visible there. Also, your friends can find out mutual friends between you and him/her. Similarly, if a person wants, he/she can piece together certain information from both your accounts and easily find out the connection with simple research. So your entire preparation of locking down your Facebook friend-list might go in vain.