How to View Your Facebook Profile as Someone Else Would View It

You can never be too careful when posting things on Facebook. Events and images meant to share with friends or family can accidentally become available to other eyes. There are settings intended to prevent this, but checking every post to confirm the “Private” status is quite challenging.

Fortunately, Facebook has the option to let you see which of your uploads are viewable by everyone. This article shows you how to view your Facebook Profile as someone else would, giving you control over what content you make public.

Viewing Your Facebook Profile as Public on Windows, Mac, or Linux

Viewing your profile as others see it is a simple process when on a PC or Mac. To do so, follow these instructions:

1. Open “Facebook” in a browser, then click on the “upside-down triangle” (Account menu) in the top-right section.
   
2. Select “See Your Profile” at the very top.
   
3. Click on the “horizontal ellipsis” (three horizontal dots) under the profile header.
   
4. Choose “Profile and tagging settings.”
   
5. Scroll down the right pane to the bottom. Next to the “eye icon,” click on “View as” to view what others see on your profile page.
   

Viewing Your Facebook Profile as Public on Android/iOS/iPhone

Facebook Mobile lets you view your Facebook profile as public as a browser can, though enabling it is slightly different. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Open the “Facebook app” and go to your “profile page” by tapping on your “profile icon” or the “hamburger icon” (Top of the screen for Android or bottom of the screen for iOS).
   
2. To access your profile menu, tap on the “horizontal ellipsis” (three horizontal lines).
   
3. Select “View As.”
   
4. Your profile appears, displaying all publicly viewable content.

Why Would You Want to View Your Profile as Someone Else?

Social Media has dramatically changed how we communicate with others. It has made posting our thoughts and daily habits second nature. However, taking what we upload for granted can lead to many security risks for you and your family and should not be ignored.

People underestimate the amount of data a simple picture displays. A street sign, a landmark, or even the surrounding houses can give away your location to anyone persistent enough to try and find it, not to mention all of the location data in the image file itself.

If you post images to show off to friends, that is well and good, but it is an easy enough mistake to forget to switch back privacy settings once they become public. Viewing your profile as someone else allows you to see which posts you have made available to everyone else.

You can quickly decide whether these posts are OK to be left to your public profile or subsequently be made private. The ‘View As’ option lets you see all your ‘public’ posts simultaneously and eliminates the tedious post-by-post inspection process.

Take Control of What Others See

If you viewed your profile and felt like too much or too little information is available for public view, you can curate what others see. Of course, you can block people so they can’t see your profile at all, but you can also make some posts private and some posts public.

You can also restrict who can see which posts. For example, if you have Facebook friends you don’t want to see certain posts, you can restrict those individuals.

If you use the View As feature and see a lot of content you don’t want to show everyone you can make your account private. Fortunately, switching your profile from Public to Private (and vise versa) is simple. We have an article here that will walk you through all the steps.

To restrict the posts that other users see tap on the three dot icon next to the post. Then, select Edit Privacy. Tap Friends Except… and add the friends you don’t want to see your posts.

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are the answers to more questions you may have about Facebook’s View As feature.

How do I exit the View As feature?

When you’ve finished inspecting what others can see on Facebook you can easily get back to Facebook’s normal view. All you need to do is click or tap Exit View As in the upper right-hand corner.

Can I view my Facebook profile as a specific person?

Unfortunately, no. Facebook used to offer the option to choose how you could view your profile. You could choose Public or as a specific person. The company, however, removed the feature sometime around 2019.

The only way to see what another person sees (aside from the Public view) is to log into their Facebook account and search your profile.

Keeping Track of Your Uploads

Social media has become so mundane that it is taken for granted in modern times. People post almost anything and everything, from big celebrations to what they’ve had for lunch. Keeping track of what you upload is essential, as you don’t want to share things with people you don’t want to see.