Search privacy settings

Search Privacy settings give you control over how people can search for you when they want to send you money or request money from you.

What changed?
With our new settings, if someone searches for you and finds you in the search results, they’ll see your PayPal profile photo and any other info you make public in your profile settings. If you take no action, your information will be searchable starting September 5, 2023.

Privacy Tip!
Turn these settings ON if you want to make it easier for people who want to pay you or request money from you to feel confident that they’ve found the right person.

Turn these settings OFF if you don’t want people to find you in the search results when they enter your info. They’ll still be able to pay you with your QR code or send money to your email address or phone number, but they won’t get verification that you have an account on PayPal before sending the payment.

Here’s how it works:
There are 3 new settings now available (these will go into effect on September 5, 2023):

• Personal profile info lets people within the PayPal network search for you by name, email, phone, or username when sending you money.
• PayPal.Me link lets anyone outside of the PayPal network send you money using your unique link.
• Payment requests let people search for you by name, email, phone, or username when they want to request money from you.

How do I manage my Search privacy settings?

1. Go to Profile.
2. Select Data and privacy.
3. Select Search privacy.

From there, choose how you want people to search for you by toggling your controls on or off.

If I toggle my privacy settings off, can people still search for me or send me money?
Turning off all your privacy controls means that if someone searches for you on PayPal, they won’t get verification that what they searched matches with an existing account. They can still send you money if they know your phone number or email or they can scan your personal QR code, but they can’t see your name or profile photo in search results.

What’s going to happen to my old search privacy settings?
If you previously had one or more preferences turned off, you will continue to see the old privacy settings and be found in search results according to the previous settings you had chosen.