Can I Share a Photo Album on a Facebook Friend's Wall?

By David Nield

Posting a Facebook photo album link enables others to view it.
i Chris Jackson/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images

Facebook is built around sharing, whether you're sharing status updates, links or photos. Every photo album you have permission to view, whether created by yourself or one of your friends, has its own link that can be posted to another friend's timeline. The privacy of the photos within the album is not affected.

Posting an Album Link

Click through to any photo album on Facebook by following the "Photos" link from your timeline or the timeline of a friend. Click the "Share" button underneath the photo thumbnails on the album page, then "On a friend's timeline" from the Share drop-down menu. Enter the name of the friend together with any message you wish to add to the photo album link. Clicking "Share album" posts a link on the selected friend's timeline.

Tagging Friends

An alternative way of posting a link to your friend's timeline is to post the link to your own timeline and tag your friend in the accompanying message. The original link will appear on your own timeline as well as being published on your friend's. Tagging multiple friends is a useful way of sharing the same album with multiple people at the same time. It also gives you more control over which Facebook users can view the link, because it is posted to your timeline.

Who Can View the Link

When you post any kind of link (including one to a photo album) on a friend's timeline, that user controls the audience for the post. When you post a link on your own timeline and tag your friends, you control the audience -- use the audience selector drop-down on the original Share dialog to make changes. By default, the link can be seen by your friends and the friends of anyone tagged in it, but this feature can be disabled by choosing "Custom" from the audience selector and unticking the box marked "Friends of those tagged and event guests."

Who Can View the Photos

The privacy settings of the link you've posted are separate from the privacy settings of the photos themselves. Posting a link to a photo album on a friend's timeline does not change the audience settings for the individual pictures -- even if others can see the link on your friend's timeline, they will not be able to click through to the photos unless they have permission to. To set the audience for your own photo albums, click "Edit" on the album page and then open the audience selector drop-down menu.

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