How to turn off Facebook email notifications

Facebook sends emails about comments, friend requests, messages, and activity on your posts by default. You can turn off any or all of these emails without affecting your account or the notifications you see inside Facebook itself. The fastest way is through your email settings in Facebook, where you can control each type of notification separately.

You have two main routes: turn off emails one category at a time through Facebook settings, or unsubscribe from individual emails as they arrive. The settings route takes a few minutes once but stops future emails. The unsubscribe route works immediately on each email but requires you to act each time.

Key Takeaways

  • Facebook email notifications are separate from in-app notifications, so turning off emails does not silence alerts you see when you open Facebook.
  • You can disable all Facebook emails at once or turn off only specific types like comments, friend requests, or event invitations.
  • The email settings page lets you choose which notifications Facebook can send, and changes take effect immediately.
  • If you receive an unwanted Facebook email, the unsubscribe link at the bottom works right away without logging into Facebook.

Turn off all Facebook emails at once

If you do not want any emails from Facebook, you can disable them all in one place. Open Facebook on a computer or phone, click the menu icon (three horizontal lines on mobile, or the downward arrow on desktop in the top right), and select Settings and privacy, then Settings.

On the left side, click Notifications. Under the Where you receive notifications section, click Email. You will see a list of notification types. At the top, toggle off Notifications or Email notifications — the exact label depends on your version of Facebook. This stops all email notifications immediately.

If you want to keep some emails but block others, do not use this master toggle. Instead, scroll through the list below it and turn off only the types you do not want to receive.

Block specific types of Facebook emails

You might want to receive emails about messages or friend requests but not about every comment on your posts. Go to Settings and privacy > Settings > Notifications > Email, just as above. This time, leave the master toggle on and instead toggle off individual categories.

Common notification types you can control separately include: comments on your posts, likes and reactions, friend requests, messages from people you do not follow, event invitations, and activity in groups you belong to. Scroll down to see all available options — the full list varies depending on which Facebook features you use.

Each toggle takes effect immediately. You do not need to save or confirm your choices. If you change your mind later, return to the same page and toggle the notification back on.

Unsubscribe from individual emails

If you receive a Facebook email you do not want, scroll to the very bottom. You will see a link that says Unsubscribe or Unsubscribe from these emails. Click it. Facebook will ask you to confirm, and that specific notification type will stop.

This method works even if you are not logged into Facebook. You do not need to open Facebook settings or remember your password. The downside is that you have to unsubscribe from each type of email separately as they arrive, rather than controlling them all at once in settings.

Unsubscribe links sometimes take you to a page where you can choose which notifications to turn off instead of unsubscribing from everything. Read the page carefully — you may be able to disable just that one category rather than all emails from Facebook.

Why you still see notifications inside Facebook

Turning off email notifications does not change what you see when you open Facebook itself. The bell icon, message requests, and activity alerts inside the app or website stay on. Email notifications and in-app notifications are controlled separately.

If you want to silence notifications inside Facebook too, that is a different setting. Go to Settings and privacy > Settings > Notifications and look for options like In-app notifications, Push notifications, or Browser notifications. Each one controls a different place where Facebook can alert you.

What to do if you cannot find the email settings

On mobile, the settings menu sometimes looks different depending on whether you use iPhone or Android. If you cannot find Notifications in Settings, try scrolling down — it may be further down the list than you expect. On iPhone, you may also need to check your actual phone settings: go to Settings > Facebook and turn off notifications there.

If the email settings page looks different than described here, Facebook may have updated its layout. The core steps remain the same: find Settings, look for Notifications, select Email, and toggle off the types you do not want. If you are still stuck, try the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any Facebook email instead — that method works the same way across all versions.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will turning off email notifications delete my Facebook account or lose my messages?

No. Email notifications are just how Facebook tells you about activity. Turning them off does not affect your account, your messages, your friends, or anything stored on Facebook. Your account stays exactly as it is.

Can I turn off emails from one person but keep emails from everyone else?

Not directly through Facebook settings. You can only control notification types (like comments or messages). If you want to stop emails about one specific person, you can unfriend them, block them, or mute their posts. You can also set up a filter in your email client to automatically delete or sort emails from Facebook.

Why am I still getting Facebook emails after I turned off notifications?

Facebook sometimes sends emails about account security, password changes, or login attempts even when notifications are off. These are not optional. If you are getting regular activity emails after disabling them, wait a few hours — changes sometimes take time to process. If emails continue, log back into settings and confirm the toggle is actually off.

What if I want to turn notifications back on later?

Go back to Settings and privacy > Settings > Notifications > Email and toggle the notifications back on. You can do this anytime. Facebook will resume sending emails for whatever categories you enable.

Do these settings work the same on Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger?

Facebook and Instagram share some settings because Instagram is owned by Meta. Messenger has its own notification controls. Check the notification settings in each app separately if you use more than one. The steps are similar but the exact menus may differ slightly.