by
Block Party
May 4, 2025
Maybe recent news about border searches and immigration crackdowns have made you think twice about what’s visible on your social media accounts and become a reminder that you’re overdue for a cleanup. In this blog, we’ll cover a breakdown of all the ways you can clean up your Facebook, why it matters, and how to do so quickly.
Over the years, Facebook has become a personal archive storing photos, posts, comments, likes, chats, and connections that span more than a decade. What may have once seemed harmless or nostalgic can now silently increase your vulnerability in ways you might not have anticipated. Here’s how we think about cleanup, and the key areas we recommend addressing to make sure you’ve covered all bases:
⚙️ Fix your content visibility settings
Privacy settings change over time, and you might not even realize some of your posts are visible to strangers. Make sure your settings reflect what you actually want so you’re not unintentionally sharing personal information with randos, stalkers, or harassers.
👥 Limit who has access to your content and profile
Your old classmates, ex-coworkers, or people you barely know might still be “friends” with you, giving them years of access to your posts, photos, and updates. Plus, if their account gets hacked, your data is at risk too. Clean up your friends lists to limit unwanted exposure.
🗑 Delete your content
Even if your posts are archived or hidden from others, they’re still stored on your account. If someone gains access to your device, whether a partner or ex-partner, border agent, or your account, whether a hacker or even the platforms themselves through AI trainings, that information can resurface. Delete what you can to reduce what’s discoverable, just in case.
Unfortunately, Facebook doesn’t make it easy to update settings or delete content across your account – most actions take multiple clicks, and with the sheer volume of content we’ve all amassed, many people consider deleting their accounts altogether just to start fresh. For those who still use Facebook to stay in touch with a small circle, participate in groups, or sell on Marketplace, deleting isn’t always the best option. That’s where Block Party comes in.
Block Party makes it easy to update your privacy and security settings, wipe old posts, mass unfriend connections, scrub your chat history, and more, all in just a few clicks. Best of all, you can get full access to our full suite of Facebook automations for free with a 7-day trial.
Your settings play a major role in what people can see. On Facebook, settings are deeply nested, constantly changing, and confusing to decipher, making it hard to know what’s actually turned on, off, or shared. From ad tracking and location history to who can tag you or look you up by your phone number, Facebook’s settings include dozens of toggles that impact your privacy and security. It can be easy to miss something important or assume your preferences are set one way when they’re not.
Block Party’s checklist includes expert recommendations for what to do across your settings along with automations to update things quickly. Whether you want to lock down your account completely or just make a few key changes, we’ll guide you through the tradeoffs for each decision, help you navigate the chaos, and make sure nothing slips through the cracks.
Old status updates. Party pics from 2012. Shared posts you don’t even remember. All of this can still be visible on your profile and have implied information: who your family members are, where you live, where you went to school, and more. To reduce the history on your timeline, you should do a review of your posts, timeline photos, videos, check-ins, and reviews regularly. For extra coverage, you may want to consider reviewing your posts on other users’ timelines too.
If you want to bulk delete the Facebook posts on your profile or other users' profiles, you can use Block Party’s automation to delete your posts in bulk. All you have to do is select the types of posts you want to remove, choose whether you want to delete everything or only posts before a certain date, and we’ll handle the rest. Also, you can download an archive of your posts before deleting here.
Note: Deleted content will live in your Facebook trash bin for 30 days before being permanently deleted.
Every thumbs-up, heart, comment or poll vote you’ve created is part of your digital footprint. Facebook uses it to shape your algorithm, but these interactions also leave behind a breadcrumb trail of your past interests or opinions, which may reveal a surprising amount of private or sensitive information about you.
To reduce your digital footprint and limit what others can learn about you, remove your comments, likes, reactions, and poll votes from your Facebook account. Block Party’s has an automation that helps you remove these interactions in bulk. Select them all, or just one, it’s up to you.
To protect against potential exposure of your private communications from account takeover, data breaches, searches of your electronic devices, or even subpoenas, you may want to consider deleting your chat history.
It’s important to note that deleting a chat on Facebook Messenger doesn’t remove a record of the conversation for the other participant(s), but it does remove it from your account and devices. To permanently delete specific messages for all users, unsend them before deleting the chat thread.
Even if you didn’t post it, a tagged photo can show up on your profile and be visible to others. You can’t always delete the original photo (since you didn’t upload it), but you can untag yourself and remove it from your profile so it’s no longer associated with you. It can take 3+ clicks to remove one photo tag, so Block Party’s automation for tagged photos can reduce time spent reviewing all your images and quickly remove tags in bulk.
Over the years, many of us have amassed hundreds, even thousands of friends on Facebook. Yet, while our real-life connections change over time, our digital networks remain stuck in the past. Most of our feeds are flooded with photos and updates from people we barely remember or whose names we don’t recognize anymore. But here’s the problem: every one of those connections has access to your content, your updates, and your life. And that’s not always a good thing.
Removing connections in bulk allows you to be more intentional about who gets to see your content, as well as whose updates are on your timeline. With Block Party, you can mass select connections and unfriend them in bulk without manually navigating to each profile. You can learn more here.
Limit the information available about you on Facebook by deleting your page likes and interests. These can include everything from brands and public figures to hobbies or topics you may have followed years ago. Some page follows also count as likes, so it’s worth reviewing those, too.
Deleting these helps in a few ways: it declutters your feed by removing content from pages you no longer care about, it minimizes what’s discoverable about you on Facebook, and reduces how advertisers can target you based on your interests.
Right now, a lot of people are wondering what to do about their social media if they’re about to cross the American border. The truth is, the situation on the ground with regards to border control and government directives is changing, and everyone’s situation and risk profile is different, so it’s impossible to give hard-and-fast rules about what people should do. Here’s our take: while you don’t have to delete your social accounts entirely, you should probably clean them up.
There have been documented cases of border control or government officials requesting access to an unlocked device (see here and here), which in the U.S. is legal for them to do without a warrant. That means someone could scroll through your Facebook account (and other social profiles) right from your device with full visibility into your posts, photos, messages, and more. While the laws are murky, refusing access can lead to device seizure, extended questioning, or denial of entry.
As a first line of defense, review and clean up your accounts so there’s less for anyone to find. This is especially important if you're on a visa or have any reason to believe your profile might draw additional scrutiny since we know officials are looking at social media activity as part of their assessments.
If certain platforms feel especially risky, you might consider deleting those apps from your device while you travel. That said, deleting everything or using a burner phone can sometimes raise red flags. There’s a convenience tradeoff here and not everyone needs to take the most extreme steps; ultimately, it comes down to your comfort level and risk tolerance.
Ready to kickoff your Facebook cleanup? Add the Block Party extension to your browser to get started. With a 7-day free trial, you’ll get unlimited access to our settings automations and cleanup tools for one platform.
