How To Stop Seeing What Others Send Money For on Venmo

Venmo shows you a feed of payments between your friends, and you may not want to see who paid whom or why.

Venmo does not appear to offer a switch that turns that feed off, but you can shrink it and protect your own activity.

This guide covers every option that Venmo documents, and it takes about five minutes.

Quick answer: what you can and cannot change

What does the Venmo feed actually show?

In July 2021 Venmo said the friends feed would be the only social feed in the app, so strangers’ payments no longer appear.

That means everything in your feed comes from people you are connected to, or from payments set to Public.

Dollar amounts are hidden in the feed, so you see who paid whom, the note, and the timestamp.

Venmo Groups activity is visible to group members regardless of anyone’s privacy settings.

Can you turn the Venmo feed off?

Venmo’s Help Center pages on privacy and the feed describe no setting that hides or disables it.

Older guides tell you to tap a house icon or a single-person icon to switch feeds, but Venmo’s current help pages do not document those controls, so this guide leaves them out.

Asking Venmo support to switch your feed off is not a documented option either, so the steps below are what actually work.

How to see fewer payments by unfriending people

Your friends feed is built from your Venmo friends, so trimming the list is the most direct control you have.

1. Open the person’s Venmo profile.
2. Tap Friends.
3. Tap Unfriend.

Venmo does not say whether unfriending clears their past payments from your feed, so expect the change to apply to new activity.

Official steps are on Venmo’s add and remove friends page.

How to block someone instead of unfriending

Blocking goes further than unfriending when you want a person’s activity gone for good.

1. Open the other user’s profile.
2. Tap the three dots in the top right.
3. Tap Block.

Per Venmo, blocked users cannot view or comment on each other’s future payments.

They also cannot send each other payments or requests, find each other in search, or interact with each other’s profiles.

You can unblock anyone in the Privacy section of Settings, as described on Venmo’s blocking page.

Will synced contacts bring friends back?

Venmo says it has not automatically added device contacts as friends since 2022.

Even with contacts synced, friends must be added manually, so an unfriended person does not return on their own.

How to make your own payments private

Cutting what others see of you is the part Venmo lets you control fully.

1. Open the Me tab.
2. Tap the settings gear in the top right.
3. Tap Privacy.
4. Set the default payment privacy to Private.

This default applies to future payments only.

Private payments appear only in your personal feed under the Me tab and to the other person in the payment.

How to hide payments you already sent

1. Open Me, then the settings gear, then Privacy.
2. Tap Past Transactions.
3. Choose the more private option and confirm.

Venmo notes that past payments can only be made more private, never less.

To change one payment, tap its privacy icon on the payment and pick a new level.

Steps are on Venmo’s page on hiding past payments.

Who can see a payment at each privacy level?

When two people choose different settings, Venmo applies the more restrictive one.

That is why a friend can still see a payment you made with someone whose setting is looser than yours.

How to hide your friends list

A visible friends list lets people see who you know, even when your payments are private.

1. Go to Me → settings gear → Privacy.
2. Tap Friends List.
3. Limit it to friends only, or to just you.

Venmo’s help page says your Friends list can be visible to all Venmo users, only your friends, or kept private, depending on this setting.

A toggle at the bottom of that page also controls whether your profile appears in other users’ friends lists.

How to make yourself harder to find

1. Open the Me tab.
2. Tap the settings gear in the top right.
3. Tap Privacy, then Find Me.
4. Use the toggle for On Venmo or On PayPal.

Which payments are private by default?

• Card and merchant purchases: Venmo says purchases with its Mastercard debit card, its credit card and approved merchants are private by default, and you can change each one.
• Comments: commenting on a payment requires being friends on Venmo.
• Groups: activity is visible to group members regardless of privacy settings.

Which payment apps have no social feed?

Zelle has no social feed, and NerdWallet notes its transactions are visible only to the people involved.

If the Venmo feed bothers you, use Zelle for bills and rent and keep Venmo for friends who already use it.

For similar privacy cleanups elsewhere, see our guide to changing Facebook privacy settings.

Quick reference: what to try for each problem

Cleaning up other accounts too? See how to stop Facebook message spam.

Official reference: Venmo’s privacy settings help page.