How To Unpublish A Facebook Page? [in 2024]

In this Facebook page tutorial, we will share everything you need to know related to unpublishing a Facebook page, as we will cover:

How to unpublish a Facebook page? 

Here is how to unpublish a Facebook page:

1. Open the Facebook page
2. Scroll down on the left sidebar
3. Click on ‘Settings’ with the gear icon
4. Under the ‘General’ tab click on ‘Page Visibility’.
5. Select ‘Page unpublished’
6. Click on ‘Save changes’

You will see the following pop-up window where you have answer why you want to unpublish your Facebook page. Select anything and click on ‘Next’

Now, your Facebook page is unpublished.

You can change back the status of the page to ‘Published’ whenever you wish to do so as shown in the next section.

What happens when you unpublish a Facebook page?

When you unpublish a Facebook business page on Facebook it means that it won’t be visible to the public until you publish it back to Facebook page. It is basically a way to temporarily hide a Facebook page.

When a Facebook page is unpublished, only people who manage the Facebook page will be able to see it on Facebook, your fans and followers won’t be able to see either the page or its posts on Facebook.

Unpublishing a Facebook page vs deleting a Facebook page

The main difference between unpublishing a FB page vs deleting a Facebook page is that whereas deleting a Facebook page is a permanent action that cannot be taken back, when you unpublish a.k.a hide a Facebook page, it is a temporary decision so you can publish the Facebook page so make it visible again any time you want.

When you unpublish a Facebook page, you don’t lose any followers or likes and your post history will also not be deleted, it will be visible to the public again when you publish your Facebook page back.

When should you unpublish a Facebook business page?

It is a good idea to unpublish a Facebook page when you are making huge changes to your Facebook page.

For instance, when you make a complete rebrand of the Facebook page and you have to change the name of the Facebook page, the cover photo, the profile picture of the FB page and everything else at once, you don’t want your Facebook fans to get confused and you want to have all the changes to be visible at once. Unpublishing a Facebook page makes this possible.

Another good occasion you can unpublish a Facebook page when there is a scandal related to your brand and company and you don’t have the resources to moderate the negative comments on your Facebook page. In this case, it is a good idea to unpublish a Facebook page, and when things settle down a little bit, you can publish the FB page back.

How to publish a Facebook page?

When you want your Facebook page to be visible again, you can easily publish a Facebook page back. 

1. From your Facebook newsfeed click on ‘Pages’ on the left side of the screen
2. Select the page you want to unpublish
3. Scroll down the left sidebar, and click on ‘Settings’ with the gear icon
4. In the ‘General’ tab click on ‘Page Visibility’.
5. Select ‘Page Published

Now, your Facebook page is published, your Fans, followers and anyone with a Facebook profile can visit your Facebook page, comment there, etc.

How to unpublish a Facebook page on mobile?

If you are not at a desktop computer and you have to quickly unpublish a Facebook page, you can also do that on your mobile phone with the  Facebook Business Suite app (previously known as the Facebook Pages app).

To make a Facebook page unpublished on mobile, follow these steps:

1. Open the app
2. Tap on ‘Settings’
3. Scroll down to ‘Page options’ and select ‘Page visibility’
4. Click on ‘Unpublish’

Your Facebook page is now hidden. You can check out this process of unpublishing a Facebook page in this video here:

Frequently Asked Questions – How to unpublish a Facebook a page