Can You Use Facebook Without Giving Your Phone Number?

Some people are happy to give every app their phone number. Others would rather not, and that is a reasonable choice. Your personal number is often the key to your bank, your email, and your messaging apps, so keeping it out of one more database is a sensible privacy habit, not a sign you are hiding something.

Sign up with an email address instead

Facebook's own sign-up instructions ask for your name, an email address or mobile number, a password, your birthday, and your gender. Choose the email option and confirm the address from the message Facebook sends you. You do not need to enter a phone number to create the account.

When Facebook may still ask for a number

A phone number is optional at sign-up, but it can come up later:

• Two-factor authentication by text message. If you choose text messages for login codes, Facebook needs a number to send them to.
• Account confirmation and recovery. A phone number is one of the ways to confirm it is you or get back into your account.

Why many people keep their personal number off Facebook

This is not just a feeling. There are concrete reasons:

• Phone numbers have been misused before. In 2019, the US Federal Trade Commission said Facebook told users it collected phone numbers for a security feature but did not disclose that it also used them for advertising. Its order now prohibits that use.
• Numbers can be matched to profiles. Meta has said that before September 2019, malicious actors used its contact importer to upload large sets of phone numbers and see which matched Facebook users. Data from more than 530 million users later appeared online.
• Your number connects your accounts. The same number on Facebook, your bank, and your email makes it easier to link those accounts to you.

You can also limit who can look you up by phone number in Facebook's privacy settings, but the safest number to protect is the one you never added.

Use an authenticator app for login codes

Two-factor authentication is worth turning on. Facebook supports authentication apps and security keys as well as text messages. An authenticator app generates codes on your device, so you get strong account security without giving Facebook any phone number. Save the recovery codes Facebook gives you somewhere safe.

If you need a number, use a second number you control

If Facebook asks for a number and you do not want to use your personal one, a second number is a middle path. It keeps your personal number private while still giving you a number you can receive texts on.

Two cautions matter here:

• Keep the number for as long as you keep the account. If you add a second number for login or recovery and later cancel it, you may lose that route back into your account. Keep your email address and recovery codes up to date as well.
• Facebook decides which numbers it accepts. Many services send codes to app-based numbers, but none of them guarantee it, so test before you rely on it.

Do not use public "receive SMS online" websites for this. Anyone can read the codes sent to those numbers, which can put your account at risk. Our guide to free phone numbers for verification explains why.

Setting it up with HashPhone

1. Download HashPhone and choose a US number.
2. In Facebook, open your account settings and add the number only where you want one, such as a recovery option.
3. Turn on notifications in HashPhone so codes arrive while you are waiting for them.
4. Set up an authenticator app for two-factor authentication and store your recovery codes.

If you also buy and sell locally, read whether to use a second number for Facebook Marketplace.