In this article
When somebody forwards your message, the copy carries a line saying it came from you — and by default that line is a link to your profile. In a public group of fifty thousand strangers, that is a door into your account you did not open.
One setting closes it. What it does is precise and often overstated, so this page is mostly about what changes and what does not.
What you will be able to do
- check_circle Stop your name in a forward from linking to your profile.
- check_circle Keep the link working for people you actually know.
- check_circle Understand why this is not the same as forwarding anonymously.
- check_circle Know that it applies to messages you sent long before you changed it.
The setting is a row in Privacy and Security, with the same three tiers and the same exception lists as everything else there.
link_off What it changes, exactly
With the setting at Nobody, your name still appears on a forwarded message. It simply stops being tappable. Someone reading it in a public group sees who wrote it and cannot get from there to your profile, your photo, your bio, your username or a private chat with you.
That is a smaller change than the name suggests and a more useful one than it sounds. The name was never the exposure — the exposure was the one-tap route from a viral message to an account that can be messaged, searched and scraped.
The setting also works backwards in an important sense: it applies to forwards made from now on, including forwards of messages you sent years ago. You are changing what the servers attach, not editing anything that already exists.
Who should have this set to Nobody
The cost of the setting is small and real. It is worth weighing against how you actually use the account rather than switching on reflexively.
| The setting that fits | What it costs you | |
|---|---|---|
| You post in large public groups | Nobody | Nothing you will notice. A useful message forwarded onward is how strangers find an account to message, and collecting exactly that is routine; people in the group can still reach you through the group. |
| Mostly colleagues and friends | My Contacts | Small and real at Nobody: somebody forwards your message to a colleague who then cannot tap through to ask you about it. The middle setting keeps the link working for people who already have you. |
| You want your work found | Leave it open | Unsolicited messages arriving at a personal account, which is the pattern this setting exists for. Posting from a channel gives the same discoverability without that. |
| Nobody, with named exceptions | Nobody, plus an Always list | Nothing, provided you name the group rather than its members — that stays correct as the team changes, and it is the arrangement that fits most people who thought about it at all. |
| You are not sure | My Contacts | Least, of any of them. It is the setting that is wrong in the fewest situations, and nothing about it is permanent. |
A sensible default: My Contacts, or Nobody with your regular groups on the Always list.
history How far back it reaches
The setting applies to the forwarding, not to the message, which means it works backwards in the only direction that is useful. Something you wrote two years ago, forwarded tomorrow, arrives under the rule you have today. There is no need to go looking for old messages and nothing to clean up.
What it cannot do is reach forwards that have already happened. A message passed on last month is sitting in somebody's chat with a working link in it, and changing the setting now does not go and edit it. If a particular link is the problem, the setting is the wrong tool — it is a default for everything from here on rather than a recall.
It also has nothing to say about copying. Anybody can select your words, paste them somewhere, and type your name underneath. What the setting removes is the automatic route from a forwarded message to your account, which is the route that gets used at scale; a person determined to attribute something to you by hand was never going to be stopped by a privacy toggle.
settings Changing it
- Open Privacy and Security Settings, then Privacy and Security.
- Open Forwarded Messages The row asking who can add a link to your account when forwarding your messages.
- Choose a tier Everybody, My Contacts or Nobody.
- Add exceptions Always Allow for the groups and people who should keep the link.
- Check it worked Forward one of your own messages to Saved Messages and try tapping the name.
This page is one row of the privacy screen. The curriculum step covers the whole of it: what your profile discloses by default, how the tiers and exception lists are evaluated, and which settings actually reduce what a stranger can learn about you.
At a glance
- 1Forwarding privacy
Stop forwards of your messages from linking to your profile.
- 2Exceptions
Keep the link working for chosen people.
- 3Not anonymous
Your name still shows; only the link is removed.
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