Hey Dave! Whenever I change my profile picture on Facebook all my friends are notified of this change. Not good. How do I stop this? Thanks.
Ya see, this is another reason not to have any friends, because then you could change profile pictures to your heart’s content without ever worrying about anyone being notified.
Well, maybe that’s a bit drastic as a solution. The problem is that you can’t actually turn off those friend notifications of updates you make like a new profile photo. There’s a kind of workaround that people use, but it’s not a perfect solution, just a kind of dirty band-aid on the madness that is the Facebook user experience. 🙂
The idea is that you update your picture, then immediately delete the fact that your profile picture changed from your Timeline. From that point forward — theoretically — your friends won’t see that notification in their timeline, though there’s still a small window between when you set the photo and when you delete the notification where it is still available.
Let me show you how it works…
First off, here’s the top left corner of my own Facebook home page, with a tiny thumbnail of my photo, etc:
To change my profile pic, I can simply click on the profile picture thumbnail. Then I’m looking at my own profile page. Hover the cursor over the image and an option pops up:
Move the cursor into “Edit Profile Picture” and some options appear:
As you can surmise from the option I’m selecting here, choose “Upload Photo…” if you have a new picture you want to use, or “Choose from Photos…” if it’s one that’s already on Facebook and accessible to you.
I’ll upload a fun picture I have from when I worked at a medieval games (though frankly the outfit is more renaissance than medieval, as far as I know. Still, it’s a pretty interesting photo…)
After a moment or two the profile picture is shown updated and I’m done. Easy enough:
Problem is, now I want to get rid of the update notification. I can’t, though, the event’s already happened, but in a somewhat confusing manner, removing it from my own timeline makes it less visible to others. To do that, I need to reload my profile page to see the new notification:
Yeah, I’ve “updated my profile picture” alright. I just don’t want people to know I’ve done it! 🙂
Again, move the cursor to a hidden spot, this time on the top right of the box that contains the image and update information…
That’s the choice. “Hide from Timeline”. But that’s not enough, as Facebook hints when it tells you that the update has been hidden:
Okay, you crazy interface! How do I actually remove the darn update from the system? How about clicking on “Delete”? Seems reasonable…
Yup. Now people can see my profile picture has changed, of course, and they can see the notification on my timeline about the photo upload (tho that can be deleted too) but the notification about me changing my profile pic should be invisible.
Now if only Facebook would add an “anti-promote” or “unpromote” option to updates, they could make some coin off of my desire to keep things hidden. Or should I not suggest that to them?
I hate my facebook ,I can’t access my fb acct. somebody disabled my account on my face book and change my email and stole my IP add; my concern is why they allow this person to do this on me. how to get it back my facebook.
This works, but many are not following the instructions. I have had two failed attempts before I found Dave’s instructions. Having been thru this a couple times the instructions worked for me. All the confusion are even more reason for fb to give us the option. Programmer don’t think like the rest of us. They need someone with common sense looking over their shoulders.
=-=-=-=-= THIS METHOD WORKS =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= THIS METHOD WORKS =-=-=-=-=-
1. CHANGE YOUR PROFILE PICTURE LIKE NORMAL
2. AFTER IT HAS BEEN CHANGED QUICKLY GO TO ACTIVITY LOG
3. SELECT PROFILE PICTURE’S PRIVACY AND CLICK “ONLY ME”
4. IT WILL STOP IT APPEARING ON ANY FRIENDS NEWSFEED
THIS CURRENTLY WORKS
Try this out:
Upload a picture to an album. Before you post it, specify the audience as “Only Me”.
Then go to that picture, make it your profile pic. “The profile pic changed” post wont appear in friend’s newsfeed.
Try this out:
Upload a picture to an album. Before you post it, specify the audience as “Only Me”.
Then go to that picture, make it your profile pic. “The profile pic changed” post wont appear in friend’s newsfeed.
^^^ This is the only thing that actually worked for me.
The thing is you have to make the album you’re uploading private. Otherwise the fact you uploaded will be posted as status, even before you set it as profile.
Tried all suggestions above with negative outcome :-/
Update the picture at midnight to reduce number of people seeing it is considerable the only option. Many notifications will come after and this can help some thought but not all.
Now, I’m scared! Wish I had just read Dave’s suggestion. No, but I had to read the comments.. What if I do it wrong and everyone knows? What if it malfunctions and sends the notification to everyone. I’ll never be able to live with myself knowing that everyone knows I’m a “profile picture changer” And all my three friends will hate me. Damn facebook!
Actually, they removed the option to delete the notification. After hiding it from your timeline, when you refresh, it’s right back on your dang timeline for all to see.
The newsfeed notification is worse. It gives you options, the middle is to “stop notifications”, which is VERY MISLEADING!! It only stops YOU from getting notifications of your own profile photo changes. Not cool. Not cool at all.
If they listen to you (they don’t listen to me), then YES, PLEASE suggest to them a way to unpromote a dang notification, or at least leave you set the audience to “only me” on the notification. PLEASE?!?!
Thank you.
I changed my privacy settings to ‘only me’, but It still appears in others’ news feed. Rally annoying!
Thanks for that. Just deleted a picture from my profile pics album (that I don’t have another copy of) by following this advice. =(
sorry ’bout that, but this is why backups are just as essential in 2013 as they were five or ten years ago, Giles.
LOL! That happened to me too, a while ago :/
So once you hit delete it doesn’t appear on another person’s newsfeed or timeline???
When i hit delete, it actually removed the profile pic. I thought it would delete would actually keep the newsfeed and timeline from showing that my profile pic has been changed!
thanx…it works for me!
CONGRATULATIONS.
I just delete my photo.
Can’t I just set my privacy to ‘only me’ and then change my profile photo then set it back to ‘friends’?
That should work too. Try doing that, come back and report if it worked for you! 🙂
Doesn’t work for me. It deletes the profile picture, not only the notification. 🙁
This works…!!!! Changing the setting to ‘Only Me’ in your activity log… Removing form your timeline ONLY hides it form your timeline… Deleting the post/picture actually deletes the picture…
Joe …did this work for you? Sure hope it does as i want to change my pic but always hesitate because it is always plastered all over my friends news feed.Thanks
I’m tweaking the look of a new community page on FB and this was driving me batty! Thanks for the clear instructions on how to stop it.