The difference between your Facebook account and profile
Your Facebook account
You have to create a Facebook account in order to use Facebook. Your account is where you'll:
- Enter information about yourself such as the name you go by in everyday life, email address, mobile phone number, date of birth and gender. You may be asked to confirm that this name is the name you're known by. Learn more about names on Facebook.
- Create a password to log in to your account and access your main profile.
Your main profile
Your main profile is the profile that you create when you sign up for a Facebook account. Your main profile is required and can only be deleted if you delete your Facebook account. Your main profile must be active in order to create and use additional Facebook profiles.
This profile represents you on Facebook and is a place where you can share information about yourself (e.g. your interests, photos, videos, current town/city and home town). It's also where you'll:
- Use the name that you go by in everyday life.
- Use Messenger as your main profile or create a Messenger Kids account for your child.
- Upload your mobile contacts.
- Manage certain settings such as how people can find and contact you using your contact information.
- Access Pages that you manage as an admin.
- Manage your account settings such as:
- Account information: Your contact information, language preferences, payment information and other general information about your account.
- Security: Login information, apps and websites connected to your account and your activity off Meta technologies.
- Ads: Ad preferences to control how data influences the ads that you see.
- Delete or deactivate your Facebook account. Deleting or deactivating your account will also delete or deactivate all profiles managed by that account. Learn more about deactivating or deleting your account.
Your additional Facebook profiles
Additional Facebook profiles can represent different things about you, such as your interests or communities that you belong to. You can delete or deactivate your additional Facebook profiles individually.
Each profile has a unique @username that will appear on the profile. Each profile also has its own Friends list and Feed and can follow different groups and Pages.
As your profiles are under one Facebook account, we use information from all of your profiles to personalise your experience across Meta Products, including ads. You may also see friends, groups and other recommendations based on activity from your other profiles.
Account settings apply to all your profiles, and you can access these settings through your main profile. Profile settings, including privacy and who you block, apply to each profile individually. When you create an additional Facebook profile, its profile settings are automatically set to default settings. Profile settings include things such as:
- Privacy: Adjust who can see things such as the profile's posts.
- Profile and tagging: Control what appears on the profile by adjusting settings for tagging and reviewing posts.
- Blocking: Manage who you block for each profile. Learn more about blocking profiles on Facebook.
- Messaging: You can use Messenger as your additional Facebook profile. If you delete or deactivate an additional Facebook profile, you'll lose access to Messenger for that profile.
Your notifications and profile settings from one profile don't carry over to your other Facebook profiles. You can manage some settings separately for each profile, such as choosing who can see that profile's posts or send friend requests to that profile. You can update privacy settings for your profiles at any time.
People may learn that the profiles you create are connected based on what you do or say. Your profiles may be suggested as a friend to others, and some information on your profile is public. Learn about things to bear in mind when you use additional Facebook profiles.
