Meta is removing additional Facebook profiles after 14 December 2026: what group admins must do

Meta is removing additional Facebook profiles, the secondary profiles a person could create inside one Facebook account, and says they "will be permanently removed after December 14, 2026". Meta announced the change on 12 November 2026 in an update to its Meta Newsroom post on multiple personal profiles. Main profiles and Pages are not affected. The Facebook Help Centre adds one consequence that matters to anyone running a community: if an additional profile is an admin of a Facebook group and no main profile is assigned as admin before the deadline, the group is paused until an admin is added.

What Meta announced on 12 November 2026

Meta published the notice at 9:00 AM PT on 12 November 2026 under the heading "Simplifying How Profiles Work on Facebook". It sits at the top of the Newsroom post from 21 September 2023 that first launched multiple personal profiles, so the launch announcement and the shutdown notice now share one page.

Meta's stated reason is short. Additional profiles were meant to let people keep parts of their lives separate, such as a hobby, a community or an interest. Meta says that "in practice they added complexity for the people using them and made it harder for us to deliver a consistent experience", and that Facebook is "simplifying to one profile".

Meta says that from 12 November 2026 it is notifying everyone who has an additional profile by email and, where applicable, by in-app notification and a notice in Feed. Meta also says the main profile, which it defines as the first profile created at sign-up, "will stay exactly as it is". The Newsroom update points readers to a Help Centre article for the steps, and says Meta will keep that article updated through the transition.

What an additional Facebook profile is, and what it is not

An additional profile is a second identity inside one Facebook account. When Meta launched the feature on 21 September 2023, it said a person could have up to four additional personal profiles, each with its own name, @username and Feed, and could switch between them without logging in again. Meta said the main profile would not show that the person had additional profiles.

The 2023 post also set limits. At launch, Dating, Marketplace, Professional Mode and payments were not available to additional profiles, and the option was open only to eligible adult accounts. A person could choose any name for an additional profile, while the main profile had to stay in the name the person uses in everyday life.

That definition matters for reading the deadline correctly. The removal covers profiles created inside one account and reached through the profile switcher. A Facebook Page is a different object, and Meta says Pages are not affected. Marketing Oops, the Thai trade publication, noted in its 13 November 2026 coverage that separately registered accounts with their own login sit outside what the announcement confirms. Meta's notice does not mention them at all.

The dates and rules in one table

The table below collects what Meta's Newsroom update of 12 November 2026 and the Facebook Help Centre article "Additional Facebook profiles are going away" say about timing and consequences.

Who is affected by the removal

Anyone who created an additional profile under their Facebook account is affected, and nobody else is named in the announcement. Three groups of users have work to do before 14 December 2026.

• People who posted photos, posts or other content from an additional profile and want to keep a copy. After the deadline the profile and its information are permanently deleted, according to the Help Centre.
• People whose additional profile is an admin of a Facebook group. The group needs a main profile as admin before the deadline.
• People who built a separate network on an additional profile. Friends, group memberships and followed Pages do not move to the main profile on their own.

A person who only ever used one profile has nothing to do. The same goes for a business that runs its presence through a Facebook Page, as far as Meta's statement goes: Pages are listed as unaffected.

How to export an additional profile before 14 December 2026

The Facebook Help Centre says additional profile information can be exported until 14 December 2026, and lists the steps in this order.

1. Switch into the additional profile that you want to export information from.
2. Go to Settings and privacy, then select Settings.
3. Below Your information and permissions, select Export your information.
4. Select Create export, select your additional profile and confirm whether to Export to device or Export to external service.
5. Select the information that you want to export and Create export.

Two details in the Help Centre article are easy to miss. First, an export takes time to prepare, and Meta tells people to request it before 14 December 2026 so it is ready in time. A request made on the last day may not finish. Second, a person with more than one additional profile has to export each profile individually. There is no single export that covers all of them.

The Help Centre also says that some information collected from additional profiles, "including ads information", can only be accessed by exporting the Facebook information for the main profile. Anyone who wants a complete record should therefore run an export from the main profile too. The article does not define which ads information it means.

Facebook group admin reassignment before the deadline

The Help Centre instruction is one sentence long: if an additional profile is an admin of a Facebook group, assign a main profile as admin before 14 December 2026. The consequence is stated just as briefly: "If no new admin is assigned, the group will be paused until an admin is added."

The safest way to act on that is to treat every group where an additional profile holds the admin role as at risk, then fix each one. A workable sequence looks like this.

1. Switch into each additional profile and list the groups it administers.
2. For each group, open the member list and check who else is an admin, and whether those admins are main profiles.
3. Add a main profile as admin. It can be the same person's main profile or a colleague's.
4. Switch to that main profile and confirm it can approve posts, manage members and change settings.

The Help Centre does not describe what a paused group looks like to members, how long a pause can last, or how an admin is added once the only admin profile no longer exists. Because those points are not stated, waiting to find out is a poor plan. Assigning the admin now removes the question.

Moving friends, groups and Pages to the main profile

An export is a copy of data. It does not carry relationships across. The Help Centre says people "may be able to" reconnect from the main profile through an option called Review connections, which shows the additional profile's friends, groups and Pages and lets the person choose which to add, join or follow from the main profile.

The Help Centre is explicit that not everyone will see Review connections. Where it does not appear, the person reconnects manually from the main profile by finding and adding friends, joining each group and following each Page. For someone who used an additional profile to sit in many groups, that is slow work, and joining a group again may depend on that group's own admins approving the request.

What Meta did not say

Meta's notice and the Help Centre article leave several questions unanswered, and readers should not fill the gaps with guesses.

• Numbers. Meta has not said how many additional profiles exist, globally or in Thailand.
• Page admin roles. Meta says Pages are not affected, but neither document addresses a Page role or Page access held through an additional profile.
• Ad accounts and Meta Business Suite. Neither document mentions ad accounts, Business Manager or Meta Business Suite access.
• Posts and comments in groups. Neither document says what happens to content an additional profile posted in groups or on Pages after the profile is deleted.
• Separately registered accounts. The notice covers additional profiles only. It says nothing about second accounts that have their own login.

On the last point, nothing in Meta's notice makes a duplicate or fake account a safe replacement. Meta's 2023 post repeats its policy that the main profile must be in the name a person goes by in everyday life, and that profiles cannot be used to impersonate others or misrepresent identity. The reasonable move for a staff member who used an additional profile for work is to shift that work to their main profile or to a Page.

What Page and community managers should audit this month

For a social team, the announcement turns into a short audit with a fixed end date. None of the steps below comes from Meta. They follow from the gaps listed above.

• Ask every person who touches the brand's Facebook presence whether they act through a main profile or an additional profile. People may not remember which one they set up years ago, so have them check the profile switcher.
• List every group the brand owns or moderates, with each admin and moderator, and mark the ones held by an additional profile.
• Check Page access. Meta has not said Page roles are affected, and it has not said they are safe when held through an additional profile either. Confirming that each person's access works from their main profile costs a few minutes.
• Do the same check for Meta Business Suite and ad account access, for the same reason.
• Export anything of record value: customer conversations, competition entries, photos, posts that document a campaign.
• Tell group members if the admin's name is about to change, so that a new admin profile approving posts does not look like a takeover.

Teams that advertise on Facebook should run the access check before the December sales period, because a locked-out campaign manager is harder to fix during a holiday week. Brands that want a second pair of eyes on account structure can look at how Relevant Audience handles Facebook ads management.

What this means for Thai marketers and sellers

For Thai businesses the exposure is in groups, not in ads. Meta's notice changes no ad product. The risk sits with brands and sellers that use a Facebook group to answer customers, announce stock or run a member community, where the person who created the group did so from a separate "work" profile to keep it away from their personal one. If that work profile is an additional profile and it is the admin, the group is the asset at risk on 14 December 2026.

The second exposure is continuity. A seller who built a customer following on an additional profile's friends list loses that list unless they reconnect from the main profile, and Review connections is not shown to everyone. A message to regular customers now, asking them to add or follow the main profile or the shop's Page, is cheaper than rebuilding the list in January.

The third point is structural. A group or a customer list tied to one employee's personal identity is fragile whether or not Meta removes a feature. Moving customer communication to a Page, with more than one person holding access, is the arrangement Meta has said is unaffected. For brands that want to rebuild community reach with paid support, social media advertising through a Page is the route that this change leaves untouched.

Questions people are asking about the removal

When will additional Facebook profiles be deleted?

Additional Facebook profiles will be permanently removed after 14 December 2026, according to Meta's Newsroom update of 12 November 2026. The Facebook Help Centre says the profile and its information are permanently deleted after that date, so exports and admin changes need to be finished before it.

Will my main Facebook profile or my Page be affected?

No. Meta says the main Facebook profile and Pages will not be affected. Meta defines the main profile as the first profile created at sign-up and says it will stay exactly as it is.

What happens to a Facebook group if its admin is an additional profile?

The group will be paused until an admin is added if no new admin is assigned, according to the Facebook Help Centre. Meta tells people to assign a main profile as admin before 14 December 2026. It has not described what a paused group looks like to its members.

Does this affect ad accounts or Meta Business Suite access?

Meta has not said. Neither the Newsroom update nor the Help Centre article mentions ad accounts or Meta Business Suite. The only reference to advertising is that some information from additional profiles, including ads information, can only be exported from the main profile.

Are second Facebook accounts with their own login being removed too?

Meta's announcement does not cover them. The notice is about additional profiles created alongside a main profile inside one account. That silence is not permission: Meta's policy still requires the main profile to use the name a person goes by in everyday life.

The deadline is fixed and the work is small if it starts now: export, reassign group admins, reconnect, and confirm that every team member's access runs through a main profile. Relevant Audience can review a brand's Facebook setup as part of its Facebook ads service if a team wants help before 14 December 2026.