How to Remove the Photos on Top of Your Facebook Profile

My Facebook profile without photos on top

A few weeks ago, I explained why the new Facebook profile doesn’t work. One of the main issues was the photos that show at the top of the profile seem totally random and are very distracting. A friend pointed that hovering over the pictures pulls up a “close” button that lets you replace the photo with a different one. Once I realized that I wasn’t stuck with the photos Facebook selected for me, I started to wonder what would happen if I just kept clicking that close button until there were no more photos to display.

As it turns out, a good thing happens!

if you keep clicking the close button, eventually the photos disappear and you gain a much cleaner profile page.

Then I wondered what would happen if I did the same thing with the rest of the information Facebook places at the top of the page. I really don’t want my details there, so I went to my “edit profile” page and deleted or hid everything. Again – success! Take a look at this video that documents this process. My excitement is evident.  I apologize for the sound quality.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/19130565[/vimeo]

It took about five minutes for me to create a cleaner profile page. If the photos and information bother you too, give it a try!

It’s a neat little trick but the question remains: why do we need to work so hard to feel comfortable with our profile? Why isn’t Facebook giving us more options to control which information is showing where, and why isn’t the company admitting that its latest profile re-design is a total disaster.

What do you think about having your photos on top of the profile? Would you follow the above process to remove them?

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Edited a few hours after posting: My facebook photos are back on the top of the profile. I guess Facebook *really* wants them there. Sigh. I had to do the whole process again and the photos are gone…for now.

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Second update: Facebook kept putting back the photos. I ended up un-tagging myself from all the photos and even that didn’t entirely work, they just posted some un-tagged photos. Removed those now and so far my photos are still gone.