If you are worried about your Facebook profile picture and do not want anyone to misuse your picture. Don’t worry Facebook has released Profile Picture Guard feature to protect your Facebook Profile photo. This feature will protect the Profile Picture from other peoples to download or save in their Computer or Smartphone. So no one will be able to abuse your profile picture.
Enable Facebook Profile Picture Guard
Facebook has rolled out the Profile Picture Guard feature for everyone. Facebook will show following notification to remind how you can protect your Profile picture from spammers:
If you see above “Help Protect Your Profile Picture” notification on your Timeline then you’re so lucky and also don’t ignore this. To turn on click on the “Turn On Profile Picture Guard”.
After this, you’ll be redirected “Help secure your Profile Picture“ page. Here you can see how Facebook will protect your Picture. To continue, click the Next.
On next page, you’ll see the preview of profile pic. Here you can adjust the picture in the frame and Add Design feature helps discourage other people from copying your profile picture. Choose a design to add pattern overlay on your pic, When someone will want to maximize the picture then this feature will add pattern overlay on your Picture. After choosing a pattern click on Save button.
That’s it, now you have successfully enabled Facebook Profile Picture Guard.
Also See: WhatsApp: How to disable account information sharing to Facebook.
How to Enable (Turn on) or Disable (Turn off)
As you read above Facebook shows you a reminder notification to enable profile picture protection. After enabling you don’t like this feature and want to disable (Turn off) or you’ve missed above notification and thinking to enable (Turn on) it then follow the steps below:
Turning off:
If you have enabled this feature and it is protecting your profile photo then it can be easily disabled. To disable this feature Click on the Profile picture and then click on Options, which will available on profile pic at the bottom right. After clicking on Options a menu will appear from that you’ll need to select “Turn off profile picture guard” option.
As soon as you Turn off this option a small Turn Off Profile Picture Guard dialog box will appear. Which asks surety to disable this, Click on Yes and the feature will be turned off.
Turn On again:
Just incase you have missed Facebook Notifications and have not enabled it yet. Don’t worry it can be enabled using this method:
- Click on the Profile Picture and it opens then click on Options. After that choose “Turn on profile picture guard” option from the menu. And follow the same steps as I described above with Facebook notification.
Download Profile Pictures if Facebook Profile Picture Guard is turned on.
Do you think, Facebook Profile Picture Guard is enough for Profile photo security and after implementing this, no one can download and take the screenshot using Smartphones. Then It is not completely true. I’m saying this because as I found when you click on the Profile Picture, then Profile Guard feature loads after one or two seconds and after clicking on Profile picture if you immediately right click on the Picture then Save Image as.. option will appear. So anyone can download the image without any problem, even when the Picture Guard option is enabled.
This may be a bug and will be fixed in the future and everyone can’t catch it but something is better than nothing. So you can use Facebook Profile Picture Guard option that enabled basic protection on your Profile Photos.
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Gulshan Kumar says
Hi Pramod,
It was interesting for me to read this article to learn more about this new feature.
Few days back, I enabled profile picture guard but I got shocked when I found that anyone can still download pictureby right clicking. Alternatively, one can take screenshot also. LOL!
Well, in serious matter reporting Copyright Infringements is better. 🙂
Pramod Kumar says
Facebook was trying to something good, but it can’t completely protect your Picture. Spammers can easily take a screenshot of the profile picture and profile guard also loads a bit late, so the feature is nothing to worth. So yes reporting Copyright infringements is better 🙂