Recently, all of a sudden, Facebook started bombarding me every day with notifications containing new friend suggestions.
Thanks, but no thanks!
Fortunately, there’s a way to stop this notification, and I’ll show you how to do it on both the website and mobile app.
Stop New Friend Suggestion Notifications on the Facebook Website
If you want to turn off friend suggestion notifications on the Facebook website, then here’s what you need to do.
Step 1
Click on the drop-down arrow found in the top-right corner, and access Settings & Privacy.
Step 2
From Settings & Privacy, choose Settings.
Step 3
Click on Notifications on the left sidebar.
Then, on the right, click on People You May Know, and either turn off the friend suggestion notifications entirely or only choose to stop receiving them in specific places.
That’s it! After I disabled them, I didn’t receive any more notifications of that type.
Stop New Friend Suggestion Notifications on the Facebook App
Here’s what you need to do to stop friend suggestion notifications on Facebook’s mobile app.
Step 1
Tap on the hamburger menu – the three horizontal dots.
Step 2
Scroll down to Settings & Privacy and choose Settings.
Step 3
Scroll down to the Notifications section and choose Notification Settings.
Step 4
From the Notification Settings, choose People You May Know.
Step 5
Turn off the new friend suggestion notifications entirely or only from specific places.
That’s it! That type of notification should stop now.
That’s a Wrap
I hope you found this guide useful and the solution worked for you as well.
If you have thoughts or questions, please leave a comment below.
This was awesome. So clearly written, every step and aligned with how things currently are on FB. Of course, FB doesn’t want this to be simple to find on its website or on Google so thank you for being the wise person to solve this annoying intrusion by FB. Thank you so much. 🙂
Thank you! I’m happy that you liked the post and it helped you out. 😀
Wonderfully explained and worked instantly! Thank you for sharing your wisdom!
Thanks! I’m glad it helped you out!
On the Facebook website, you can also open the Notifications pane, click the ellipsis (…) in the top right corner of that pane and then select the Notification settings.
That’s true 😀 Thanks for pointing it out.
does this also stop me from being suggested to other people as a friend?
I can’t tell you exactly, but I don’t think so. I don’t see a reason for that to happen. I think there are other settings to stop yourself from being suggested to others.
I did all this and I still see a pile of new friend suggestions in the Friends block on the app every day. I don’t get notifications but it would sure be nice to not see the big list at all.
I don’t think that’s possible to turn off. This answer from Facebook is a year old, but I believe it still applies today.
I still do not have “People you may know”
That’s weird. Where did you check? App or website?
What did you do to take it off?
Hi!
Thanks for your post!
But in my case, still doesn’t work… if turned off on my Android all “push-email-sms” notifications and still appears and sent to me lots of “friends suggestions “
I want specify that I’ve turned off the location too…
I will appreciate if you can help me with few advises..
Thanks!
Gio
Hello!
That’s weird. It still works for me and others. Are you talking about the notifications that appear in the admin bar, at the top, in that red bubble? Because friend suggestions will still appear in other places that are not related to the Notification system.
Perfect that is exactly what I need, many thanks.
Awesome! I’m glad it helped you.
Thank you Radu, this was efficient and precise.
Thanks for the comment. I appreciate it. 😀
I’m on the app.. And after going too settings.. There is no “notifications” subset… Any Intel?
Sick of the random BS suggestions..
I think that’s one of those weird issues… A few people have experienced similar things.
I just updated the post with screenshots from the new UI, and I can confirm that the notification settings are still there in my app, on the latest version.
I have no idea why some people are missing certain settings. Maybe Facebook is doing some A/B testing, and some users get different UI with different settings…?
I went into the Facebook App on my iphone and into the Settings and Privacy, Settings and then into Notification Settings and People you May Know. I made sure everything was off but yet I checked next day and a tons of new friend suggestions were in there. What did I do wrong? Its not working for me. Do I have to do this from the computer too maybe?
Thanks
I’m not familiar with the Facebook app for iOS, but from your comment, it looks like the settings are similar.
You should also do it from the Facebook website, as you mentioned. Maybe that will do the trick.
Also, keep in mind that this won’t remove all the friend suggestions from every place. Just those pesky Push notifications and others mentioned in the People You May Know section.
Thanks I will try going to Facebook website too and see if that helps.
Its just really annoying. I dont need to have friends suggested for me. If I want to add someone Ill search and add them. I dont need suggestions. Most of the people I have no idea who they are and some live in other countries. Sometimes I see people I knew from school in there and ex bf’s which is weird I guess because either the same town or same friends in common but still its weird. I dont like it.
Yep, it’s annoying. I hope that you manage to solve it.
Excellent! Thank you. I’m as annoyed as you were about the wave of friend suggestions I was getting. But your advice helped me solve some other problems too! Thank you.
Happy to help. 😀 Thanks for the comment!
So glad I found your page. Within a few minutes I had made the corrections in settings. I had spent many search hours trying to figure out something that should have been as easy as u proved it to be. Thx Pam.
I’m happy that my post helped you out. Thanks for the comment! 😀