How to delete old Facebook posts

Summary

Old Facebook posts can be embarrassing and searchable if your privacy settings aren’t updated.
To delete old posts, you can scroll through your timeline or use the Activity Log for efficiency.
Archiving or deleting old posts doesn’t remove them permanently right away, providing time to restore them if needed.

If you had Facebook when you were younger, chances are you have some posts you aren’t particularly proud of. Facebook has changed so much since it debuted in the early 2000s — people used to poke and prod at each other a lot more on the app, post photos of whatever they were doing as full albums, and Facebook messages were only in the Facebook app. Now, it’s built more on the foundation of sharing videos, utilizing the Messenger app, and offering a place to sell things through Marketplace, among other features.

Of course, you can still post statuses to let people know what you’re doing and pictures to show what you did. But Facebook still has all of your posts hidden deep in its archives that even you’ve probably forgotten about. The problem is that most of those posts are still going to be searchable — and therefore, discovered — by other users if you don’t have the right privacy settings enabled. What was once a dumb joke could now be quite an embarrassing post in your digital footprint.

There are a few ways to go back and delete or get rid of those old statuses and posts. It may not be at the top of your mind, but this post is a reminder to think back and actually go back — here’s how to scrub your old posts from Facebook for good.

Facebook

Facebook is a social media app from Meta. Mark Zuckerberg created it and it features Messenger, Marketplace, videos and more. It’s an easy platform to use to stay in touch with friends.

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Go the long route

It can take a while, but it’s still effective

If you want to search back through your old posts by scrolling through your entire timeline, you can. It’s an effective way to find the posts that you’re looking for and also have a fun trip down memory lane.

If you remember when the post you want to take down is from, this may not be the fastest way to get there. But you will at least know when you’re getting close as you scroll. When you get to the post that you’ve been looking for, you can do two different things to scrub it off your wall. You can either archive it or delete it.

Choosing to do either won’t get rid of your post entirely right away. If you archive it, it will be placed in an archive, which you can go into and pull it out of. If you move it to the trash, it will remain there for 30 days before being permanently deleted.

To do this, you must

Scroll to the post.
Click on the three dots at the top of the post.
Click on either Move to archive or Move to trash.
If you click on Move to trash, click Okay in the pop-up window that comes.

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The more efficient way to find posts

Utilizing the Activity Log can get you there sooner

Using the Activity Log is a faster way to narrow down the post that you’re looking for. If you don’t remember when the post was originally created, but you do remember what it was about or who you tagged in it, you can track it down through the Activity Log.

The Activity Log shows you a running history of everything you’ve done on Facebook. This includes names or topics you’ve searched for, live videos you’ve shared, posts you liked, who has written on your wall, whose wall you’ve written on and more.

The Activity Log shows you a running history of everything you’ve done on Facebook.

To get to the Activity Log, you have to be logged in to start.

Go to your profile.
At the top of your profile, under the banner and profile picture and above your wall, there are three dots. Click them.
The sixth option listed is Activity Log. Click on it.

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Inside the Activity Log, you can filter the activity you want to explore and a number of other features. This includes posts, comments, activites you were tagged in, reels, stories, and more. You can either click into one of the sections or go to the top left of the Activity Log and search for the post you want in there.

You can also filter by the date if you have an idea of when it was.

You can get incredibly granular or just look at a large list of activities you’ve done. It shows you a list of all of your friends and when you became friends with them or even a list of what videos you watched. If you’re going through posts and find one that you have on your wall, you can click the three dots on the post and delete it. This goes for any activity that shows up in your list, even a video you watched.