How to remove your child's photos from Facebook

Open the photo and check who uploaded it. If it was you, you can remove it through Activity log. If it was someone else, removing a tag or hiding it from your profile leaves their upload on Facebook.

That second situation needs a request to the uploader or a privacy report to Facebook. The steps below cover both, including what to do when you're blocked or the report form won't accept the link.

Start with your account, including the profile picture

Before searching old albums, check your current profile picture and cover photo. Facebook makes both public, so replace either one if it shows your child and you don't want that image public. Limiting comments doesn't change who can see the picture. Older profile and cover photos can have different audiences. Facebook's public-profile guidance

For the rest of your uploads, open Activity log:

On a computer, choose Your Facebook activity → Posts → Your posts, photos and videos. Use the date filters to find the upload, then open its Options menu. Activity log instructions

Archive keeps the post for you and hides it from other people. Move to Recycle bin makes it visible only to you for 30 days before automatic deletion. Where Delete is offered directly, you may lose the option to undo it immediately. Save any family copy you want before choosing it. Facebook's action guide

That recovery deadline is separate from erasure on Meta's servers. Facebook's terms allow up to 90 days for deletion and up to another 90 days for backups, with exceptions. The deletion-timeline explanation covers what can remain and how to ask about it. A post leaving your profile is a useful result, but it doesn't confirm that the backups have gone.

For multiple posts at once, the full Facebook cleanup guide explains the app's batch controls, then takes you through comments and group contributions separately.

Review more than the obvious baby album

Activity log is useful for old dates, but review the content as well as the thumbnail. Your child might appear later in a video, or their name might be in a comment rather than the post itself.

A post that says where your child goes every Tuesday still gives away that routine after you cover their face. Edit the words if you want to keep the post; remove it if the information you want private is the subject of the post itself.

Send relatives the actual link

On a computer, click the photo or post's date or time, then copy the address from the browser's address bar. That opens the particular post, instead of sending your relative back to their whole profile. Facebook's link-copying instructions

Please delete this photo of our child: [post link]. We're keeping their photos off Facebook, including private accounts and family groups. Please check for other uploads too, and ask us before posting any new ones.

Change the private-account rule if yours is different. If a cropped or covered replacement would be fine, say what you want changed. If you want the photo removed completely, leave that clear in the request.

For a school, club or photographer, send it to whoever manages the account and ask them to check their other pages too. The school photo-consent guide covers recording the preference for future events. If a relative keeps posting after agreeing to stop, use the follow-up wording here.

If a request doesn't work, report the specific problem

For a child under 13, Facebook lets a parent request removal through its privacy form. For a child aged 13–17, it generally asks the teen to submit the request themselves, except when they are physically or mentally unable to do so. Start with Facebook's child-privacy page to choose the right route.

The Facebook privacy form asks you to:

1. Enter your name, email and country.
2. Select whose privacy is involved: a minor.
3. Say whether you're the child's legal guardian or legal representative.
4. Answer whether the child is under 13.
5. Provide the link to the specific image or video and complete the questions that follow for that content.

Get the post link before starting. The form's No URL option says it can't process the report without a relevant link. A Page or group home page won't identify the photo. An album link is accepted when every photo or video in that album violates the person's privacy; otherwise link to the individual content.

If you're blocked, the form suggests asking a friend who can see the post to copy its address. They can send the link without downloading or reposting the picture. If nobody can access it, keep the link or account information you have and ask the uploader to confirm removal; being unable to open a post doesn't establish that it's gone.

If the form won't submit

Copy the link again from the specific photo or video, then remove any extra text in the field. If the error remains, save the error message and note which field failed.

On a computer, use Profile picture → Help and support → Report a problem to report the broken form. Include what you were trying to submit and the error you received. This goes to technical support; it doesn't replace the privacy request. Facebook's technical-report instructions

If Facebook leaves the post up

For a separate privacy-form request, follow the confirmation email and case reference. Reply with the information it asks for, and read the reason if the request is refused.

For reports made through Facebook's Community Standards controls, open Profile picture → Help and support → Support Inbox → Reports about others. Open the decision, choose See options, then Request another review if it's available. State the detail the first decision missed. Some decisions don't offer another review. Facebook's review instructions

If the photo is reposted at a new address, include that new link in your follow-up or a new report. The earlier report may only identify the original upload.

Set the audience for future posts too

Changing the audience on an old photo doesn't choose the audience for the next one. On Facebook's website, open Profile picture → Settings & privacy → Settings → Audience and visibility → Posts. Beside Who can see your future posts?, choose the audience you want as the default, then Done. Facebook's default-audience instructions

For a particular new post, use the audience selector below your name before publishing. Changing it there affects that post; the next one returns to your default. Stories and Reels have their own audience controls, and a post or comment in a public group is still public. Check the place you're posting, as well as the setting on your personal profile. Facebook's audience guide

A tag can also widen a post's audience to the tagged person's friends. Leave tags out when you don't want that extra audience. You can still send a relative the post privately without attaching their account to it.

Review what appears on your profile

In Settings → Profile and tagging, turn on Review posts you're tagged in before the post appears on your profile? if you want to approve those profile appearances. Facebook's review instructions make the limit explicit: the original post can still appear in Feed, search and other places.

Use that control to keep your profile from collecting new tagged photos automatically. Keep asking the uploader to remove the photo itself when that's the change you need. And if your Instagram posts also go to Facebook, check the automatic-sharing controls so the next upload doesn't silently recreate the copy you just removed.

Check the other copy before calling it done

Reopen each post after removal and keep any unresolved links with the request or report reference. If the same picture went to Instagram, use the Instagram removal steps for that upload. If Google still shows it, use the Google removal guide.

Deleting your upload won't collect a file someone already downloaded, but it removes the post the next visitor would have seen. To prevent another upload from the same relative or organization, finish the conversation by agreeing what they can share next time, including the names and captions around the picture.