How to delete old Facebook posts in bulk
Short answer: Open your Activity Log in the Facebook app, tap Manage Activity, filter your posts by date or type, select the ones you want gone, and choose Archive or Trash. Trashed posts are deleted automatically after 30 days. To hide rather than delete, Facebook's Limit Past Posts setting makes all your old public posts friends-only in one step.
The built-in tool: Manage Activity
Facebook's Manage Activity, inside your Activity Log, lets you select several posts, photos, or videos at once and either archive them or move them to the trash. Facebook's help center lists it for the iPhone, Android, and Facebook Lite apps.[1]
- In the Facebook app, go to your profile and open your Activity Log (under the three-dot menu or in settings).
- Tap Manage Activity, then Your Posts.
- Use the filters to narrow things down by category, date, or people tagged.[2]
- Tick the boxes next to the posts you want gone.
- Choose Archive or Trash.
Menu names shift a little as Facebook updates its apps.
Archive or trash? Archived posts are visible only to you. Trashed posts stay in the trash for 30 days, visible only to you, and are then deleted automatically. You can restore them or delete them sooner during those 30 days.[1] If you're not sure, archive. It removes the post from public view just the same.
Tips that save time
- Work one year at a time, oldest first. Reviewing a year at a time is safer than selecting everything at once, and less likely to catch something you meant to keep.[3]
- Not everything shows up in Manage Activity. Some items, like posts other people tagged you in, may need to be handled one at a time from the Activity Log.[3]
- Empty the trash if you want posts gone right away instead of in 30 days.[1]
The one-step alternative: Limit Past Posts
If your goal is to hide old posts rather than delete them, Facebook's "Limit past posts" setting changes all your past public posts to friends-only in one step. Know its limits: it's hard to undo, posts with a custom audience aren't changed, and people tagged in a post can still see it.[4]
Do you need to delete everything?
Probably not. If you're cleaning up for a job search, what matters is the small number of posts that fall into the categories screening companies flag: harassment, intolerance, threats or violence, illegal activity including drugs, and sexually explicit content. See what a social media background check shows. Deleting a decade of birthday posts and vacation photos doesn't lower that risk.
The faster route is to find the handful of posts that actually matter. Download your Facebook data and PruneSocial will score supported text from your exports against published screening categories, and tell you which to archive or delete.
A note on third-party deletion tools
Browser extensions that promise to mass-delete your posts often need access to your logged-in Facebook session. Before installing one, check who makes it and what it can access. Facebook's own Manage Activity tool is slower, but it doesn't require giving anyone else access to your account.
See what your own history looks like
PruneSocial scores supported text activity from your own account exports against publicly documented screening categories and gives you one specific cleanup action for anything flagged. Try a free 50-item preview first.
Start a free preview