How to Turn Off Comments on Facebook Posts (2026): What Actually Works Per Surface
Most guides answer this as if Facebook had one comment switch. It does not. The control you get depends entirely on where the post lives, and on two of the four surfaces there is no off switch at all. Here is what each surface actually offers, checked against Meta's own help articles in July 2026.
Skip to: TL;DR table | Profile posts | Page posts | Group posts | Live videos | Off vs hide vs filter | FAQ
TL;DR: Can You Turn Off Facebook Comments?
Two things follow from that table, and they are the reason so many guides are wrong. First, there is no account-wide "no comments ever" setting on Facebook. Second, the phrase "Turn off commenting" is real, but Meta documents it only for groups. If a guide tells you to click it on your profile timeline post, treat that guide as unverified.
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Personal Profile Posts: There Is No Off Switch
Meta's help article on who can like or comment on your posts is explicit that this is an audience question, not an on/off question: you use the audience selector to choose who can like or comment, and on a public post "everyone can comment on your public posts, even people who don't follow you" by default.
The account-level setting (public posts only):
- Click your profile picture, then Settings and privacy, then Settings.
- Open Followers and public content in the left menu.
- Find Who can comment on your public posts?
Meta's help article lists exactly three choices here: Public ("includes everyone, even people who don't follow you"), Friends, and Friends of friends. There is no "nobody" and no "off". This setting also only governs public posts. A post shared to Friends is already limited to that audience.
The per-post setting:
Open the post, click the three dots at the top right, and choose Who can comment on your post?. Changing it here applies to that post only and does not change your setting for your other public posts, which is the useful part: you can lock down one sensitive post without touching your defaults.
The per-post menu is also where the narrowest option lives: Profiles and Pages you mention. Facebook announced this option on 31 March 2021 alongside Public and Friends, for profiles and Pages. If you pick it and your post mentions nobody, nobody can comment. That is the practical equivalent of turning comments off on a profile post, and it is what moderation vendors recommend because nothing better exists.
Honest note on sourcing: this option is in the app and was announced by Facebook, but it does not appear in the option list of the help article that covers the setting, which still describes only Public, Friends and Friends of friends. Expect the exact label to differ between the app, mobile web and desktop.
What profiles do not get: the keyword blocklist and the profanity filter. Meta documents both of those for Pages only, so on a profile your only reactive tools are hiding, deleting and blocking the person.
Facebook Page Posts: The Same Control, Plus Real Moderation
The per-post control on a Page is the same one as on a profile: three dots, Who can comment on your post?, then narrow the audience, with "Profiles and Pages you mention" as the tightest setting. There is no composer checkbox that disables comments before you publish, and there has not been one for years.
Where Pages genuinely pull ahead is automated filtering, which is a different job from turning comments off:
- Profanity filter with Off, Medium and Strong levels, applied automatically.
- Blocked words, your own list of up to 1,000 words and phrases, including slang, misspellings and emoji. Matching comments are hidden automatically.
- Moderation Assist, in the Professional dashboard, which applies rules a keyword list cannot express, such as comments from very new accounts or comments containing links, and reports how many it hid.
None of those stop comments. They hide comments after the fact. If your real problem is volume rather than the existence of a comment section, that distinction matters, and our social media moderation tools guide covers what the free native controls do before anything is worth paying for.
If comments on your Page posts are disappearing without you touching anything, that is usually one of these filters rather than a bug. Our guide to Facebook comments not showing walks the causes in order.
Group Posts: The Only Real "Turn Off Commenting" Button
This is the one surface where Facebook ships a genuine switch, and Meta's help article for it is scoped to groups and nothing else.
- Go to facebook.com/groups and select your group.
- Open the post whose comments you want to stop.
- Click the three dots (Options), then select Turn off comments.
To reverse it, open the same menu and choose Turn on comments. Existing comments stay visible; only new ones are blocked.
Two limits worth knowing. Only the group's admins and moderators and the person who wrote the post can do this. And the related control for turning off comment replies while leaving top-level comments open is, per the same help article, currently available for some groups only, so do not assume you will see it.
This asymmetry is a real reason to run a discussion in a group rather than off a Page. Our Facebook Page vs Group comparison covers the other trade-offs before you move a community.
Live Videos: Limit, Do Not Disable
Meta's help article explaining why a viewer cannot comment on a live video says broadcasters have comment control settings that can limit viewers' ability to comment on their live videos. That is a restriction system, not an off switch, and Meta does not document a single control that removes the comment stream entirely.
What is documented is the viewer side: anyone watching a live video can hide the comments and reactions from their own view and bring them back, as long as the broadcaster has comments enabled. That is cosmetic and affects nobody else.
Practical read: plan for a moderated live chat, not a silent one. Assign a moderator before you start, and set your Page profanity filter and blocked-words list ahead of the stream rather than during it, because a live chat moves faster than a person can hide comments.
Turn Off vs Hide vs Filter: What Each One Looks Like to the Commenter
This is the distinction almost every guide skips, and it is the one that decides which tool you should reach for. All three get described as "removing a comment", and they behave completely differently for the person who wrote it.
The row that surprises people is hiding. Meta's help articles for both Pages and profiles state that a hidden comment stays visible to the person who wrote it and to their friends. Hiding is not a quiet delete. It works on strangers and on trolls who never look twice, and it fails completely on someone with mutual friends in your audience, because those friends still see a comment you believe you removed. When you hide a comment on your profile, replies to that comment are hidden along with it.
Two follow-on effects nobody warns you about:
- Your comment count will not match what you can see. Hidden comments, including everything the profanity filter and blocked-words list caught, still count. A post that reads twenty-four comments and shows twelve is not broken.
- Auditing your hides is desktop-and-Android only. The "Hidden by This Page" view, reached by clicking Most relevant above the comments, is per Meta's help article available only on computers or the Android app. If you moderate from an iPhone, you cannot easily review what your filters have been hiding.
Related reading if your instinct is to remove the post rather than the comments: our guide to hiding and unhiding Facebook posts. And if you are comparing platforms, YouTube's comment controls work on a hold-for-review model rather than a hide model, which is a genuinely different workflow.
What Happens to Comments That Are Already There
Turning off commenting in a group, or narrowing the audience on a profile or Page post, is forward-looking only:
- Existing comments stay visible to the same people who could always see them.
- No new comments can be added by anyone outside the allowed audience.
- Reactions on existing comments still work.
- Nothing is deleted, and nothing is restored if you switch the control back on.
If the point of the exercise is to clear what is already under the post, you have to act on the comments themselves: hide them one by one, or delete them. There is no bulk "remove all comments" action on any Facebook surface.
Retired Paths You Can Stop Looking For
If a guide, or an older version of this page, sends you to any of these, it is out of date:
- Meta Creator Studio. Retired in 2024. It is not where you moderate anything.
- Publishing Tools on a Page. Folded into Meta Business Suite.
- Settings, then General, then Page Moderation or Visitor Posts. That is the classic Page settings layout. Pages moved to the New Pages Experience, the moderation controls now sit in Page settings under privacy and safety, and Moderation Assist lives in the Professional dashboard.
- Settings, then Page Roles. Replaced by task-based Facebook access and business access. There is no longer an Editor or Moderator role dropdown.
- A gear icon in the Page composer with "Allow comments on this post". This does not exist. If you want a Page post with no comment box, narrow the audience after publishing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you completely turn off comments on a Facebook personal profile post?
No. Facebook does not give profiles an off switch for comments. What it gives you is control over who is allowed to comment: Public, Friends, Friends of friends, or the narrowest option, Profiles and Pages you mention. Choose that last one on a post that mentions nobody and no one can comment, which is the closest equivalent to turning comments off.
Where is the Turn off commenting option on Facebook?
In groups. Meta's help article that carries that name covers group posts only: open the post, click the three dots for Options, then select Turn off comments. Group admins, moderators and the person who wrote the post can use it. On profile and Page posts the equivalent menu item is Who can comment on your post, which limits the audience instead of disabling comments.
Does the person know when I hide their Facebook comment?
They get no notification, but hiding is less private than people assume. Meta's help articles for both Pages and profiles say a hidden comment remains visible to the author and to their friends. Anyone with mutual connections can still see a comment you think you removed. Deleting removes it for everyone, though the author can tell it is gone if they look.
Can I stop comments on all my Facebook posts at once?
Not entirely. The setting under Settings and privacy, Settings, Followers and public content lets you set who can comment on your public posts across the board, but the narrowest choice there is Friends, not nobody. Anything tighter has to be set per post. Pages can add a profanity filter and a blocked-words list, but those hide comments after they are posted rather than preventing them.
Why does my post show more comments than I can see?
Hidden comments still count toward the total. That includes comments you hid manually and comments the Page profanity filter or blocked-words list hid automatically. On a Page you can review them by clicking Most relevant above the comments and choosing Hidden by This Page, which per Meta's help article is available on computers and the Android app only.
Can I turn off comments on a Facebook Live video?
Not with a documented single switch. Meta's help article on why viewers cannot comment on a live video says broadcasters have comment control settings that limit who may comment, which is a restriction rather than a shutdown. Viewers can hide the comment stream from their own view, but that changes nothing for anyone else. Plan on moderating a live chat instead of silencing it.
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