Facebook is testing a private profile for your closest friends

Facebook is testing a feature that allows you to set a ‘private’ profile only your closest friends can see. After all, not everyone on Facebook is really your friend.

Facebook working on a private profile mode which you can share with just a small circle of close friends

h/t Devesh Logendran pic.twitter.com/yqbKYN3H5m

— Matt Navarra ⭐️ (@MattNavarra) September 10, 2017

The tip came to us courtesy of Devesh Logendran, who found the feature after digging through the APK for the latest Facebook for Android beta. Unfortunately, the ‘Create a Private Profile button’ doesn’t actually work, so we have no clue what exactly a private profile entails.

You can already hide certain parts of your profile and timeline so they are only visible to specific people, so it’s possible this new feature is simply streamlining the features already available on Facebook, but it sounds a little more thorough than that. It’s also not clear whether your close friends will know that they’re viewing a special, private version of your profile. I’d hope so; after all, you probably don’t want them blabbing about something you meant to share privately.

Private profiles could help Facebook feel a little more personal, but the managing who can see what information can quickly become tedious. It’s like circles on Google Plus; potentially very useful, but often more effort than they’re worth. Still, it’s clear the company is thinking of ways to separate your close friends from acquaintances, given it’s testing a similar ‘favorite friends‘ feature on Instagram.

Of course, Facebook tests new features all the time, so it’s possible this one will never come to fruition. We’ve contacted Facebook for more information and will update this post if we hear back.