🚀 Make Your Facebook App’s Privacy Public – A Simple Tool & Guide

If you've ever posted a link to Facebook via the Graph API and found that it only showed up for friends (or even just yourself), you've hit the default privacy wall. This guide explains a small tool that flips an app's privacy setting to public – and shows you how to use Facebook access tokens so your posts actually appear as "Public."

📖 What This Tool Does

1. Paste your Facebook session cookie (the one your browser uses).
2. Enter the App ID of the Facebook app you want to make public.
3. Click "Do It!" – the tool sends the request to Facebook and changes the app's default privacy to EVERYONE (Public).

Once that's done, any post you make using that app's access token will default to Public, instead of the usual Friends or Only Me restrictions.

🛠️ How to Use the Tool

1. Get Your Facebook Cookie

The tool needs a valid Facebook session cookie. The easiest way is to install a browser extension that lets you copy cookies:

• Recommended extension: Cookie Viewer – Inspect and Copy Website Cookies (Chrome Web Store).

After installing, go to facebook.com, open the extension, and copy the entire cookie string. It will look something like:

datr=...; c_user=100009588012043; fr=...;

2. Enter the App ID

The App ID is the numeric identifier of the Facebook app you want to change. You can find it in the Facebook Developers dashboard under your app's settings. OR by debugging your access token from official facebook token debug page: https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/accesstoken/

3. Click "Do It!"

📤 Posting via the Graph API – and the Privacy Problem

Facebook's Graph API allows you to post to your own feed using a user access token:

https://graph.facebook.com/me/feed?method=post&link=https://google.com/&message=google&access_token=YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN

By default, posts made this way use the app's own privacy setting. If your app is set to Friends or Only Me, your API posts will inherit that restriction – even if you try to override it with a privacy parameter.

Why the privacy Parameter Doesn't Always Work

You can include a privacy parameter in your POST request, e.g.:

{
  "link": "https://google.com/",
  "privacy": { "value": "EVERYONE" }
}

However, Facebook does not allow you to set a more open privacy than the one the app has been granted. So if your app is configured as Friends, sending "value": "EVERYONE" will still result in a Friends‑only post.

🔑 How to Get and Use a Facebook Access Token

To post via the Graph API, you need a valid user access token. Here's how to obtain one:

Choice 1: Get access token via cookie using this free online webapp

Choice 2:
1. Go to the Graph API Explorer.
2. Click "Get Access Token" and select the permissions you need (e.g., publish_video or pages_manage_posts for pages).
3. The tool will generate a short‑lived token (usually expires in 1–2 hours).
4. You can exchange it for a long‑lived token (up to 60 days) using the official endpoint.

Once you have your token, you can post a link with a simple curl command:

curl -X POST \
  -F "link=https://google.com/" \
  -F "access_token=YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN" \
  https://graph.facebook.com/me/feed

After running the tool above, this post will appear as Public on your timeline.

🐞 Debugging Your Access Token

Sometimes tokens expire or lack the required permissions. Facebook provides a dedicated Access Token Debugger to inspect any token:

👉 https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/accesstoken/

Paste your token into the debugger and you'll see:

• App ID – which app the token belongs to.
• User ID – whose account the token represents.
• Expires – when the token will become invalid.
• Scopes – the permissions granted (e.g., public_profile, email, publish_video).

You can also debug a token programmatically using the Graph API endpoint:

GET /debug_token?input_token={token-to-inspect}&access_token={app-access-token}

This is useful for automating token checks in your own scripts.

📋 Summary

📌 Important Notes

• The tool uses your session cookie, which is highly sensitive. Never share it with anyone.
• Facebook's API policies change over time – always refer to the official Graph API Reference for the latest updates.
• If you encounter errors, double‑check that your cookie is still valid (log out and back in to refresh it) and that the App ID is correct.