Hide Friends on Facebook to Avoid Seeing Posts You Don't Like

Clean up your news feed by hiding, snoozing, and unfollowing

By
Leslie Walker
Leslie Walker
Writer
  • University of Virginia
Leslie Walker covered social media, web publishing, and internet technologies for About.com (now known as Lifewire).
lifewire's editorial guidelines
Updated on November 5, 2020

Hiding someone on Facebook is a skill that's worth learning because it reduces the uninteresting status updates in your news feed. When you hide a friend, it means that you are hiding what they write so that it doesn't show in your news feed. You remain Facebook friends and can message each other at any time.

How Do You Hide a Facebook Friend?

There are three ways to hide friends and pages from your news feed:

  • Hide Post: Hide a specific post from your news feed. You won't see it again.
  • Snooze for 30 Days: Don't see posts from a friend for 30 days.
  • Unfollow: Only see a friend's status updates if you go to their timeline, not in your news feed.

Hide a Specific Post

What can you do to avoid repeatedly seeing a post that makes your flesh crawl, or one that you don't want to see in your feed, for any reason? Hide it.

In your news feed, select the three horizontal dots in the upper-right corner of the post you want to hide. Then, select Hide post. It won't show in your feed again.

The More menu and Hide Post command

Hide a Friend by Snoozing Them for 30 Days

Some Facebook friends post too much, and you get tired of seeing their status updates. You can block their posts from showing up in your news feed for 30 days. You may find that you miss their updates when the 30 days are up. If not, you can snooze them for another 30 days.

In your news feed, select the three horizontal dots at the top of a post from a friend you want to snooze. Then, select Snooze Name for 30 days, where Name is the name of the friend you want to snooze, or unfollow, for 30 days.

The "Snooze for 30 days" option

Unfollow Friends From Your News Feed

You can unfollow someone completely, which means you won't see any of their status updates in your news feed unless you decide to follow them.

In your news feed, select the three horizontal dots at the top of a post from a friend you want to unfollow. Select Unfollow Name, where Name is the name of the friend you wish to unfollow.

The Unfollow command

To unfollow someone does not mean you are unfriending them. It means you won't see their status updates in your news feed.

Unfollow Friends From Their Profile Page

You can also unfollow a friend or a page by going to their profile page. On their profile page, select the person icon and select Unfollow in the drop-down menu.

The Unfollow command

Be careful not to tap Unfriend accidentally, as it is right below Unfollow.

Is Unfriending Easier?

You may think it's easier to unfriend someone than hide them from your timeline, but it is not. Hiding is a two-step process that you can do from your news feed, while unfriending is a three-step process that requires you to go to the person's profile page or timeline.

While there's a lot of debate over Facebook addiction and the value of a Facebook friendship, there are many benefits to maintaining those electronic connections.

When you hide certain friends, pages, and posts, you can feel comfortable staying connected to your many acquaintances and friends on Facebook.

Was this page helpful?