Photos are the most exposed part of most profiles, and half of them are not on your profile at all. Paste your own profile link below to see which photos a stranger can open today, then follow the steps to change them.
Photos you uploaded: each has its own audience, set when you posted it. Albums have one audience for the whole album.
Profile pictures and cover photos: the current ones are always public. Older ones keep the audience they had, which for most people means public.
Photos you are tagged in: they belong to whoever uploaded them, and their audience decides who sees them. Your setting only controls whether they appear on your profile.
Photos you liked or commented on: not on your profile, but Facebook search can list them, and the audience is the uploader's.
Paste your profile link above and open each of those four links under Photos. What opens for you as a logged-in user is roughly what opens for any stranger.
Change the audience on your own photos
Open your profile, tap Photos, then Albums.
Open an album, tap the three dots and choose Edit. Set the audience to Friends or Only me. Every photo in the album follows.
For single photos, open the photo, tap the three dots, tap Edit audience and pick a setting.
For old profile pictures, open the Profile Pictures album and change each photo you want to hide. The current one stays public.
Use Limit past posts under Settings, Privacy, Your activity to make every old public post, photos included, friends-only in one step.
Control the tagged photos
Tap your picture, Settings and privacy, Settings, then Profile and tagging.
Turn on Review posts you are tagged in before the post appears on your profile.
Set Who can see posts you are tagged in on your profile to Friends or Only me.
To remove an old tag, open the photo, tap the three dots and choose Remove tag. The photo stays on the friend's profile but leaves yours.
What stays visible no matter what
Your current profile picture and cover photo, at thumbnail size at least. Photos friends posted of you, at whatever audience they chose. And anything you posted to a public group or Page, which follows the group. Profile lock, where it exists, shrinks the profile picture to a thumbnail and pulls every old public photo to friends-only, which is as close to a single fix as Facebook offers.
Common questions
Are my old profile pictures public?
Usually yes. Facebook makes each profile picture public when you set it, and it keeps that audience after you change to a new one. Open the Profile Pictures album and change them one by one.
Can I hide a photo a friend tagged me in?
You can remove it from your profile by removing the tag or turning on tag review. You cannot change its audience, because the photo belongs to the friend who posted it.
Does Only me hide a photo from the person who is tagged in it?
Only me hides it from everyone but you. If you tagged someone, Facebook removes the tag when they can no longer see the photo.
How do I make every old photo friends-only at once?
Use Limit past posts under Settings, Privacy, Your activity. It changes every public post on your timeline, photos included, to Friends in one step. Albums set directly to Public need to be changed on their own.
