Tuesday, October 19, 2010

It's Time for Facebook App Fall Cleaning

There has been a lot of news about the issue with Facebook applications sharing our data. Although I'm not shocked, it made me wonder how many apps I have. So I looked up how to delete them, how to find them, etc. When I took a look I had over 200 apps connected to my account and about 120 of them, I didn't need anymore and never heard of. Yikes! Time to do what I would like to call a "Fall Cleaning".

If you want to do the same here is how you do it, straight from the Facebook Help Desk.

You can manage your application settings from the Applications You Use page. To get to that page, follow these steps:

  1. Go to the Privacy Settings page from the "Account" drop-down menu located at the top of any page on Facebook.
  2. Click the "Edit your settings" link under the Applications and Websites section towards the bottom of the page.
  3. Click on the application you'd like to remove. If you don’t see the application listed, you can find it by clicking the Edit Settings button towards the top right-hand side of the page.
  4. You’ll then see an expanded view of your settings for that application. From here, you can click the "Remove application" link. Once you confirm you’d like to remove the application, it will no longer have access to your data and be removed from your profile, bookmarks, and your Applications and Games Dashboards.

From the Applications, Games, and Websites page, you can also:

  • Remove unwanted or spammy applications
  • Turn off all platform applications
  • Control what information is open to your friends through applications and websites they're using
  • Control who can see your recent activity on their Applications and Games Dashboard
  • Edit your instant personalization and public search listing settings
It took a while and it was a pain but I would recommend doing it. I would love to know how many apps you removed.