How to Use Facebook Activity Log

Facebook's Privacy Shortcuts menu.

The Facebook Activity Log is a very much under-advertised feature on the social network but it can really help you review, organise and lock down privacy on all your Timeline activity.

The Activity Log doesn't just give you access to all your past posts, status updates and uploaded photos.

It also lets you see all the content from friends that you've liked, shared or commented on your own Timeline.

From the Facebook Activity Log screen, you can delete content, remove items from your Timeline, change the audience setting to refine who can see each item (although this isn't possible for your likes/comments on friends' content because they control the audience settings for the original post).

Step-by-Step Guide to Using the Facebook Activity Log

1. Click the "Privacy Shortcuts" button -- it's the one with the padlock icon -- in the top menu bar while you're signed into your Facebook account.
2. Select the down-arrow beside "Who Can See My Stuff?" in the pull-down menu.
3. Click the "Use Activity Log" link to open your Facebook Activity Log in the main screen below.

Now you can scroll through all your past activity. To hide an item from your Facebook Timeline, click the pencil icon beside the entry, and then choose "Hide from Timeline" or "Unlike" from the pull-down menu. Conversely, you can also reinstate to the Timeline items that you've previously hidden -- click the circle-bar icon next to the entry and choose "Allowed on Timeline" or "Highlighted on Timeline."

To change the audience setting on your own content, select the audience icon and then choose your preferred share setting from the drop-down menu. You will also see this icon on friends' content with which you've interacted -- however, you can't change the setting but hover your mouse over the icon to check the share setting chosen by your friend.

There's another useful feature on the Facebook Activity Log, too. At the top of the page, click to select the "Include Only Me Activity" check box to view everything you've done on Facebook that isn't published on your Timeline; for example, you can see which people you've searched for in the past.