Facebook is a place for connecting with friends, family, and other people you know personally.

If you’ve been prevented from adding friends on Facebook, it’s likely because friend requests you’ve sent have gone unanswered or members reported your contact as unwelcome.

You’ll be allowed to add friends again soon. At that time, please remember to only send friend requests and messages to people who you already know personally. Otherwise, additional limits may be placed on your account.

Learn about our policies by reading the Facebook Community Standards.

Your top stories are stories published since you last checked News Feed that we think you’ll find interesting. They’re marked with a blue corner and may be different depending on how long it’s been since you last visited your News Feed.

We determine whether something is a top story based on lots of factors, including your relationship to the person who posted the story, how many comments and likes it got, what type of story it is, etc. For example, a friend’s status update that might not normally be a top story may become a top story after many other friends comment on it.

If you've been away for awhile, you’ll see the top stories that happened since your last visit at the top of News Feed.

We've also added a control in the top right of each story where you can mark or unmark as a top story. This will help us improve your News Feed over time. If you see something that isn't interesting in top stories, hover over the right side of the update in question, click the arrow and click 'Unmark as top story' from the menu.

Filter by friend lists
Click the name of one of your lists on the left side of your home page to view only stories by people on the list you’ve selected.

Hide a person or a story type (e.g. a quiz)
Click the drop-down menu that appears when you hover over the top right corner of a story you want to remove from your stream. Then, select an option from the drop-down menu:

• "Hide story" will remove the individual story
• The "Hide all by" and "Unsubscribe from" links will remove the post and prevent all future stories from a person, Page, group, event or app
• "Report story or spam" will remove the post and help keep your News Feed clear of similar stories in the future

Unhide stories from a person, Page, group, event or app

1. From your home page, hover your mouse to the left of the left side News Feed menu.
2. Select Edit
3. A list of people, apps, Pages, and groups you’ve hidden or unsubscribed from will appear in a pop-up box. Click the X next to each one you'd like to remove from this list. Removing someone or something from your list of hidden stories means those stories can appear in your News Feed again.
4. Click Save.

All of your news is now in one place with the most interesting stories featured at the top. If you haven’t visited Facebook for a while, the first things you’ll see are top photos and status updates posted while you’ve been away. They’re marked with an easy-to-spot blue corner.

If you check Facebook more frequently, you’ll see the most recent stories first. Photos will also be bigger and easier to enjoy while you’re scrolling through.

Our privacy settings work differently for young people than for adults. Read a detailed overview of the differences between privacy settings and sharing options for minors and adults.

To deactivate your account:

1. Click the account menu at the top right of any Facebook page
2. Choose Account Settings
3. Select Security from the left-hand menu
4. Click on "Deactivate your account"

When you deactivate your account, your profile (timeline) and all information associated with it disappears from the Facebook service immediately. People on Facebook will not be able to search for you or view any of your information.

If you’d like to come back to Facebook anytime after you’ve deactivated your account, you can reactivate your account by logging in with your email and password. Your profile (timeline) will be restored in its entirety (friends, photos, interests, etc.). Remember that you will need to have access to the login email address for your account in order to reactivate it.

There are many benefits to claiming your Facebook email address:

• It’s free and easy to set up.
• Having your email integrated with your messages, chats and texts makes it easier to check them all at once. And if you’re looking for a message later, you don’t have to worry about how it was sent since all your different types of messages are in one place.
• Your Facebook messages are compatible with traditional email systems (e.g., Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail). When people send you emails from these external systems, they’re delivered directly to your Facebook Messages. And when you send messages to external email addresses, they’re formatted to look like your messages on Facebook, including your name and profile picture along with your message.
• Owning your @facebook.com address makes it easier for friends and family who are not on Facebook yet to connect with you.
• Your other email addresses may change over time, but your Facebook email never does.

In addition to posts from friends and Pages you follow, you’ll see photo tags, friend requests, event updates, group memberships and other activity.

1. From your home page, hover your mouse to the left of the left side News Feed menu.
2. Select Edit.
3. A list of people, apps, Pages, and groups you’ve hidden or unsubscribed from will appear in a pop-up box. Click the X next to each one you'd like to remove from this list.
4. Click Save.

Removing someone or something from your list of hidden stories means those stories can appear in your News Feed again.

We've combined the Top News and Most Recent stories together in a single News Feed view.

If you see top stories first when you load your News Feed, simply scroll down to see the recent stories.

To edit your date of birth:

1. Click the Edit Profile (Update Info) button at the top of your profile (timeline)
2. Enter your birthday in the Birthday field
3. Save your changes

Note: We have limits in a place around the number of times you can edit your birthday. If you recently edited your birthday, you may have to wait a few days before changing it again. Learn more about our Community Standards.

We changed Everyone to Public to make it even more clear who you're sharing with when you select this audience. The setting still means the anyone on the internet can view this content, and any of your past Everyone posts are still visible to the same audience.

Before you post, look at the audience selector. Use the dropdown menu to choose who you want to share a post with.

 Public (Maximum audience for adults)

 Friends of Friends (Maximum audience for minors)

 Friends (+ friends of anyone tagged)

 Custom (Includes specific groups, friend lists or people you’ve specified to include or exclude)

You'll see this tool wherever you share content, whether it’s a status update or information on your profile (timeline).

The tool remembers the audience you shared with the last time you posted something and uses the same audience when you share again unless you change it. For example, if you choose Public for a post, your next post will also be Public unless you change this audience when you post.

If you want to change who you’re sharing with, open the dropdown menu and choose a different audience. Remember: anyone you tag in a post, along with their friends, may see the post.

To make it clear who you’re sharing with at all times, the audience you select appears along with whatever you are saying, every time you share. You can also use the audience selector to change who you are sharing with after you post something.

Once you turn on text messaging, the texts you exchange with friends are incorporated into your conversations along with your message and chat history. This allows you and your friends to message each other even when you’re not at your computers.

Getting and responding to messages from your phone
Once you turn on text messaging, friends can check the "Send to Phone" option when they send you messages. If a friend checks this box, you’ll receive a text that contains the message. Simply reply to the text from your phone, and your friend will receive your reply as a Facebook message. It will also be logged in the ongoing conversation with your friend, which you can view from your Messages home page.

Sending messages from your phone
To send a new message to a friend via a mobile text, just text the following to 32665 (FBOOK):

msg john smith what’s up?

This would send the message "what's up?" to your friend John Smith.

Controlling text notifications
You can control which text notifications you receive on the Notifications tab of your Account Settings page.

Search for your friend’s profile (timeline) using the search bar at the top of any Facebook page. Find the person you know and click on the Add as Friend button to the right of their name.

A friend request will be sent to that person. Once they confirm that they actually are friends with you, they will show up on your list of Facebook friends.

Please note that privacy settings may limit your ability to see the "Add as Friend" link for some users.

Please note that privacy settings may limit your ability to see the "Add as Friend" link for some users. Also, once you’ve sent a friend request to a particular user, you cannot send another.

Be sure to only send friend requests to people you know personally. We may block you from sending friend requests if requests you’ve sent have gone unanswered or members reported your contact as unwelcome.

Once you have filled out your Facebook Page and are ready to show it to the public, you need to publish your Page to have it display on the site to all users.

While your Facebook Page is unpublished, you will see a dialog at the top of your Facebook Page indicating that your Page is not currently visible to users. There is a link there to Publish Your Page. This will instantly set your Facebook Page to published and make it visible to all users. You can also publish your Page from the Edit Page section.

You can unpublish your Page at any time. Setting your Facebook Page to unpublished will hide it from all users, including people who like your Page. Your Page will only be visible to the administrators of the Page while it in unpublished. Your Page will not be visible to users until you set it back to published.

You can unpublish your Page in the Settings section of Edit Page at any time.

If you don’t remember who you shared with or changed your mind about who to share with, you can check the audience inline, right next to the post. Just review the icon that shows you which audience you picked:

 Public (Maximum audience for adults)

 Friends of Friends (Maximum audience for minors)

 Friends (+ friends of anyone tagged)

 Only me

 Custom (Includes specific groups, friend lists or people you’ve specified to include or exclude)

The audience selector is next to each post you make; it’s not on a separate settings page. The tool remembers the audience you shared with the last time you posted something and uses the same audience when you share again unless you change it.

You can go back and change the audience for any post you made by clicking the menu to pull down your options. Learn more about your audience options.

In order to provide a great Chat experience, we require you to use an up-to-date browser.

For a list of supported browsers, please click here. You can also use a desktop chat client.