I’m really curious what apps I’ve approved over the years to access my Facebook account. Is there somewhere I can see the full list and turn off Facebook account access to programs, apps and sites I don’t use any more?
It’s a smart idea to check what applications you’ve granted access to your social media accounts over time, and none more than Facebook. Why Facebook? Because in addition to making it easy to log in to other sites, we all tend to share – overshare, perhaps – lots and lots of personal information. Add those up, approve a site that doesn’t have your best interests in mind, and you can find that your information is being harvested for things you never would have approved.
Fortunately, like most sites, Facebook makes it pretty straightforward for you to see what apps and sites you have approved, what access you have granted and even to disable their access. What the particular settings page doesn’t show, however, is who that other site is and why they want the information. Then again, if it’s a site you don’t recognize, it’s probably the case that you shouldn’t be allowing them access in the first place!
To get to this area in your Facebook page, it’s easiest to find a computer and log in with a Web browser. Once you’re on Facebook, click on the tiny triangle on the top right to bring down the main account menu:
As highlighted, you want to choose “Settings” from the options to get to your account settings.
Now, on the left side of the main Facebook Settings page, there’s another menu of options:
This time you want to choose “Apps” from the last section of the menu. That’s the hard part out of the way! Now you’ll see a summary of some of the apps you’ve approved and a count of the total number of apps and sites you’ve granted access to your account:
Don’t be surprised if some of these are a surprise – like “ALOHA” above is for me – because this might represent years of you logging in via Facebook, sharing your Facebook info with various games, social media sites, and similar.
Still, anything you don’t remember should be axed because, worst case, you’ll just find you have to re-approve it next time you visit that particular site or launch that app. No harm, no foul.
Let’s have a closer look at one of these entries. To do that, simply move your cursor over its icon or logo. Two links show up:
The pencil leads to an edit option that shows you what permissions you granted and the ‘X’ lets you withdraw access permission, effectively deleting this particular app or site from your approved list.
Click on the pencil icon and here’s a typical edit window:
Sheesh, I’m sure giving AngelList access to a lot of data and information associated with my Facebook account. Not so good. In fact, since I don’t recall anything about AngelList, I’m going to back up and click the “X” icon instead and stop it accessing my Facebook info entirely.
Clicking on the ‘revoke permission’ “X” icon produces this warning:
I have no problems with this statement, so I proceed with the revoking by clicking the blue “Remove” button. A click and… it vanishes!
Except sometimes Facebook seems to glitch and you see this instead:
If you see this error message, just try again. Every time I did that it worked fine on the second try!
And how long has it been since I checked my list? Well, I did find this app:
Sheesh. Anyway, that’s how you can review and revoke all the apps that have access to your account.
And while we’re chatting, please know that I have a ton of Facebook help here on the site and I also invite you to follow AskDaveTaylor on Facebook too. Thanks!