Tinder Privacy Settings to Adjust Right Now

Be sure you understand what’s exposed by Tinder’s default controls

You probably don’t have to worry about digital privacy if you find your next love interest at a coffee shop. But in 2022 a lot of romances start online, whether they last one night or a lifetime. That means there’s a lot of data mixed up with your dating.

Tinder is the most popular dating app in the U.S., and it lets other users learn a lot about you, including demographic information, your approximate location, details about how you’re using the app, and more. Tinder’s privacy settings control some of what other users can see, and you should check them. They all use the most public, least private option by default. That might not be what you prefer, and for some people, it might be unsafe.

Some of Tinder’s privacy settings are available only to paid subscribers. We asked why people have to pay to protect their privacy, but the company didn’t respond.

The word “privacy” doesn’t just refer to protection from other users. There’s evidence that Tinder uses your data for more than matchmaking. It has charged different people different prices for its premium services (a practice the company is now ending), and a recent study suggested that user data was involved in setting those prices.

Premium subscriptions are Tinder’s main source of income, but like many dating apps, it supplements that revenue by using consumer data to help other companies serve targeted ads. Tinder’s parent company, Match Group, reported more than $60 million in “indirect revenue” last year, most of that from advertising across a number of dating apps.

There’s not much you can do in the app to limit how Tinder uses your data for its own purposes, but you can control what other users see.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to the Tinder privacy settings you should consider changing right now.

When you want a break, you can take yourself out of the swiping pile temporarily by using a Tinder privacy setting called “Show me on Tinder.” Turn it off, and Tinder will take your profile out of the feed for everyone except people you’ve already “liked.” Additionally, you’ll still be able to see and chat with people you’re already matched with.

To Hide Your Account: Tap your profile photo in the top left > Settings > Show Me on Tinder > Switch the toggle off.

Tinder has hundreds of millions of users. There’s a good chance you know some of them already. Sometimes it’s fun to match with someone you know in real life, even if it’s just as a cute platonic joke. If you’d rather not interact with certain people, though, you can tell Tinder to block them.

You can upload your phone’s entire contact list if you want to block everyone you know, but that hands Tinder a lot of your personal information. It’s also easy to block individual people by entering their name, email address, or phone number.

To Block Your Contacts: Tap your profile photo in the top left > Settings > Block Contacts. Hit “Import Contacts” and follow the prompts, or type in a name or number, and hit enter. Then tap the plus symbol on the top and fill out the form.

Tinder’s Top Picks feature uses an algorithm to analyze people’s profiles and “highlight your most swipe-worthy potential matches,” as the company puts it. You’ll see those Top Picks in the app, and by default, your profile is considered for other people’s Top Picks, too. In part, that means Tinder is using your profile to keep other people interested in the app. If you don’t like that idea, it’s easy to stop it.

To Stay Out of the Top Picks: Tap your profile photo in the top left > Settings > Manage Top Picks> Show Me in Top Picks > Switch the toggle off.

You’re probably familiar with the idea of read receipts if you use an iMessage or a number of chat apps. As the name suggests, read receipts let the other person know when you’ve opened their texts. Turning them on adds a little social pressure to keep the conversation moving, and in the dating context, they can give some indication of how the other person is reacting to your best pickup lines.

On Tinder, read receipts are a perk for subscribers, and people who’ve paid can switch them on in their chats unless they use this privacy setting to prevent it. It’s a good way to control what other people know about how you’re interacting with their messages.

To Disable Read Receipts: Tap your profile photo in the top left > Settings > Manage Read Receipts > Send Read Receipts > Switch the toggle off.

Like any service, usage ebbs and flows on Tinder. Sometimes there’s an upwelling of activity, which Tinder calls a “Swipe Surge.” It says that activity is up to 15 times higher during a surge, and that at those times your “matchmaking potential” increases 250 percent.

The company has turned these natural upticks into a feature, letting people know a surge is happening with a notification and encouraging them to enter into a special surge feed. When you join, you skip to the front of the stack for other users. Whether or not you join, people are probably going to be swiping on pictures of your face in a feature that Tinder developed to make more money. If you’re more comfortable sticking to the regular features of the app, you don’t have to participate in surges.

To Remove Yourself From Swipe Surges: Tap your profile photo in the top left > Settings > Manage Swipe Surge > Show Me in Swipe Surge > Switch the toggle off.

Tinder lets other users who interact with your profile know when you’ve been online in the past 24 hours with a “Recently Active” badge. You may be happy with that, but there are plenty of reasons you might not like it. Here’s how to turn it off.

To Disable Activity Status: Tap your profile photo in the top left > Settings > Activity Status > Recently Active Status > Switch the toggle off.

By default, your profile can show up in anyone’s feed if you match their preferences for age, gender, and other factors. That’s great if you want maximum exposure, but it’s not ideal if you want to be more discreet.

Tinder has a setting that prevents people from seeing your profile unless you “like” them first, but it’s only available if you pay for one of the app’s premium subscriptions. Here’s how to use it if you’ve paid.

To Control Who Sees You: Tap your profile photo in the top left > Settings > Control Who Sees You > Only People I’ve Liked.

Tinder lets users set age preferences for the people who show up in their feeds. No matter what, the age you typed in when you made your account is going to be factored into the algorithm. That doesn’t mean you have to broadcast your age, because there’s a way to hide it. Tinder makes you pay for that little touch of privacy, though. This setting is limited to subscribers.

To Hide Your Age: Tap your profile photo in the top left > Settings > Don’t Show My Age > Switch the toggle on.

Tinder won’t tell anyone your exact location, but it does show other users roughly how many miles (or kilometers) you are from them. That’s not inherently a bad thing, but it can be a safety concern in certain situations. For example, if you’re being targeted by a stalker, vague approximations of your whereabouts could provide hints to your daily activities. Or say you tell a match that you’re at a coffee shop. In a less urban area, a rough location estimation can reveal exactly where you are.

You can hide your location, but again, this is a setting that Tinder reserves for paid users. Note that it won’t keep your location secret from Tinder. The company doesn’t allow you to use the app at all unless you grant it permission to access your phone’s location.

To Hide Your Location: Tap your profile photo in the top left > Edit Profile > Don’t Show My Distance > Switch the toggle on.

Thomas Germain

Thomas Germain was previously a technology reporter at Consumer Reports, covering several product categories and reporting on digital privacy and security issues. He investigated the sharing of sensitive personal data by health-related websites and the prevalence of dark patterns online, among other topics. During his tenure, Germain’s work was cited in multiple actions by the Federal Trade Commission.