How to Block Strangers From Finding You in Search on Facebook

The social media giant offers several privacy settings to prevent contact

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Block Strangers from Finding You on Facebook. PhotoAlto/Sigrid Olsson/Getty Images
Updated June 07, 2017

Facebook offers privacy settings you can use to control who can find or contact you on the social media site. There are a lot of them and if you don't know where to look, you might miss them. If you don't want strangers to find your Facebook profile in Facebook search—or any other search for that matter—you need to make a few changes to your Facebook privacy settings. 

Change Your Privacy Settings

  1. At the top of your Facebook page, click the triangle in the top right corner and click Settings from the drop-down menu.
  1. Click Privacy in the panel at the left of the Settings screen.
  2. In the Who can see my stuff? section, click the Edit button next to Who can see your future posts? and make any selection other than Public. Do the same thing with the Edit button next to Who can see your friends list? Make sure the drop-down is not set to Public, which would allow a stranger to find you.
  3. In the Who can look me up? section, use the Edit button next to Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile? and select No.
  4. If you want to prevent strangers who have Facebook accounts from contacting you, click Edit next to Who can send you friend requests? and select Friends of Friends. This won't block everyone, but it reduces the possibilities to only people who are friends of your friends.

Blocking a Stranger Who Contacts You

If you receive a communication from a stranger, you can block that person from future contacts.

 

  1. In the same Settings screen you use to change privacy settings, click Blocking in the left panel.
  2. Add the individual's name or email address in the Block Users section. This selection prevents the individual from seeing things you post on your timeline, tagging you, starting a conversation with you, adding you as a friend or sending you invitations to groups or events. It does not affect apps, games or groups you both are in.
  1. To block app invitations and event invitations, enter the individual's name in the sections entitled Block app invites and Block event invites.

At this time, there is no way to prevent a person who is in the same group you are in from seeing you.