To hide your full Facebook friends list on your profile, open Settings & privacy → Settings → Audience and visibility → How people find and contact you → Who can see your friends list? and select Only me.
This controls the full list on your own personal profile. It does not hide every friendship across Facebook: people may still see mutual friends, and a friend’s public list can reveal that you are connected. The instructions below cover Facebook on a computer and the Android or iPhone app.
Before You Change the Setting
Sign in to the Facebook account that owns the profile you want to change. If you use more than one profile, check the profile name and picture before editing its audience. You do not need to unfriend anyone to restrict the list.
The audience is the group allowed to see the full list. Choose Only me to keep it visible to yourself on your profile, or Friends if you want your Facebook friends to see it. Follow the options actually offered in your account; this guide does not assume that every profile type has identical controls.
Make Your Friends List Private on a Computer
- Open Facebook in your browser and click your profile picture at the top right.
- Select Settings & privacy, then Settings.
- Find Audience and visibility and select How people find and contact you.
- Open Who can see your friends list? to display its audience choices.
- Select Only me. If your screen asks you to confirm the choice, complete that confirmation.
- Return to the setting and reopen it. Check that Only me is still the selected audience.
Use the saved audience as your confirmation. Selecting an option without completing a confirmation shown by your particular layout can leave you unsure whether the change took effect.
Older guides may send you to the Friends tab and a pencil or Manage button. If those controls are missing, use the Settings route above. Meta’s current friends-list privacy instructions document this route and its visibility limits.
Change the Audience in the Android or iPhone App
- Open the Facebook app and tap Menu. Meta currently describes this control at the top left for both Android and iPhone; if your app layout differs, look for the control labeled Menu.
- Scroll down and tap Settings & privacy, then Settings.
- Under Audience and visibility, tap How people find and contact you.
- Tap Who can see your friends list? and select Only me.
- Complete any confirmation shown, then reopen the audience setting to check that your choice was retained.
If the app’s navigation does not match, try the desktop browser instructions while signed in to the same profile. Changing an audience on the wrong profile will not correct the setting on the profile you intended to protect.
Can You Hide Mutual Friends on Facebook?
Only me does not guarantee that mutual friends disappear. Meta says people may see mutual friends when visiting your profile. Restricting your full list is still useful, but it is not a switch that makes all your connections invisible.
You also cannot change somebody else’s friends-list audience from your account. For example, suppose you choose Only me and a friend keeps their list Public. A visitor can still learn about your friendship from that friend’s list. Meta says a friendship visible on another profile can also appear in Feed, Search, and other places.
Keep that distinction in mind when checking the result: seeing a mutual friend is not by itself evidence that your full list reverted to Public. Reopen your own audience setting before changing unrelated controls.
Check the Public View Without Overestimating It
On the desktop website, click your profile picture and then your name. Open Options below your name and select View As. Inspect the profile, then choose Exit View As in the banner.
View As shows the public view for people you are not friends with. It does not let you verify every particular friend’s view or inspect how your friendship appears on another person’s profile. Meta’s public-profile preview guide explains the feature.
If the Setting Is Missing or Looks Wrong
- No pencil icon on the Friends tab: Open Settings and use How people find and contact you instead.
- No matching control in the app: Confirm you are on the intended personal profile, then try the desktop website. Use Meta’s help article for the platform you are using rather than assuming an older menu still applies.
- You still see your own full list: That is expected with Only me. Your signed-in view is not the public view.
- Other people can still see a connection: Check whether it is a mutual friend or a friendship exposed on another profile. Those are documented limits of this setting.
- Your selected audience did not persist: Reopen the control, choose the intended audience, complete any displayed confirmation, and check it again. Avoid treating a closed dialog alone as proof of success.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does this stop friend requests or hide my posts?
No. Friend requests and post audiences have separate settings. Hiding your friends list does not make the rest of your Facebook account private, and Facebook does not allow anonymous accounts. Our Facebook account privacy guide covers posts, discovery, contact details, and tagging.
Will people be removed from my friends list?
No. This changes who can see the list on your profile, rather than removing your friendships. You can still view your list yourself.
How do I make the list visible again?
Return to Who can see your friends list? and choose a different audience, such as Friends, from the available options. Confirm it if prompted and reopen the setting to check the saved choice.
Can I make another person’s full friends list private?
No. Each person controls the audience for their own profile’s list. Your Only me choice does not override their privacy settings.
Matthew Burleigh has been writing tech tutorials since 2008. His writing has appeared on dozens of different websites and been read hundreds of millions of times.
After receiving his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Computer Science he spent several years working in IT management for small businesses. However, he now works full time writing content online and creating websites.
His main writing topics include iPhones, Microsoft Office, Google Apps, Android, and Photoshop, but he has also written about many other tech topics as well.