The fastest way to silence Facebook notifications

Open Facebook on your phone or computer and go to Settings & Privacy, then Settings. On the left menu, click Notifications. You will see a list of notification types — messages, friend requests, comments, likes, and others. Click any one and you will find an off switch at the top. Toggle it off, and Facebook stops sending that type of notification immediately.

On your phone, the process is similar but slightly different. Open the Facebook app, tap the three horizontal lines (the menu) at the bottom right, scroll down to Settings & Privacy, then tap Settings. Tap Notifications, then tap the type you want to turn off. At the top of that screen, toggle the switch to off.

If you want to stop all Facebook notifications at once without visiting the app, you can also change this in your phone's settings. On iPhone, go to Settings, find Facebook in the list of apps, tap it, and toggle off Allow Notifications. On Android, go to Settings, tap Apps, find Facebook, tap Notifications, and toggle off Allow notifications. This stops every Facebook notification your phone receives, but it also means you will not see any alerts at all — even ones you might want.

Key Takeaways

  • You can turn off specific notification types (messages, comments, likes) one at a time in Facebook Settings, or turn off all notifications at once in your phone's app settings.
  • Turning off notifications in Facebook Settings is more precise — you can silence friend requests but keep message alerts, for example.
  • Turning off notifications in your phone's settings stops all Facebook alerts but does not delete your account or change what you see when you open the app.
  • If you turn notifications back on later, Facebook remembers which types you had enabled before, so you do not have to reconfigure everything from scratch.

Turning off notifications by type

Facebook groups notifications separately by what triggers them. You might want to silence likes and comments but keep message alerts, or turn off group activity but stay notified about friend requests. The notification menu lets you do this without affecting the others.

Go to Settings & Privacy > Settings > Notifications. You will see categories like Messages, Friend Requests, Comments, Likes and Reactions, Tags, Group Activity, and Event Invitations. Click or tap each one to see its current setting. At the top of each notification type's page, you will see a toggle switch. Off means you will not receive notifications for that type. You can leave some on and turn others off — there is no rule that you have to choose all or nothing.

Controlling where notifications appear

Even if you keep notifications on, you can choose whether Facebook sends them to your phone, your email, or both. This is useful if you want to see alerts when you are using Facebook on your computer but not get phone buzzes all day.

In the notification settings for each type, look for options like Push Notifications (the alerts that pop up on your phone), Email Notifications (messages sent to your email address), or In-App Notifications (alerts you see only when you are already using Facebook). You can turn each one on or off separately. For example, you might turn off push notifications for likes but keep email notifications for messages from close friends.

Muting specific people, groups, or pages

Sometimes you do not want to turn off a whole notification type — you just want to stop hearing from one person, group, or page. Facebook lets you mute them without unfriending or leaving.

To mute a person, go to their profile, click the three dots in the top right, and select Mute [Name]. You can choose to mute their posts, their stories, or both. You will still be friends, but their activity will not show up in your feed or trigger notifications. To mute a group, go to the group page, click the three dots, and select Mute Group. To mute a page, click the three dots on the page and select Mute Page. You can unmute any of these at any time by going back to the same menu.

What happens when you turn notifications off

Turning off notifications does not delete your account, change your privacy settings, or affect what you see when you open Facebook. It only stops the alerts — the buzzes, dings, and badge numbers on your app icon. When you open Facebook, your feed and messages will look exactly the same as before.

If someone sends you a message while notifications are off, the message will still arrive and wait for you. When you open the app or check Facebook on your computer, you will see it. You just will not get a notification about it. The same is true for comments, likes, and other activity — everything still happens, you just do not get alerted in real time.

Turning notifications back on

If you change your mind, go back to Settings & Privacy > Settings > Notifications and toggle the types back on. Facebook remembers which notifications you had enabled before you turned them off, so you do not have to reconfigure each one individually — though you can adjust them differently if you want.

If you turned off all notifications in your phone's settings instead, go back to your phone's Settings app, find Facebook, and toggle Allow Notifications back on. Again, this restores the notification settings you had before.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will people know I turned off notifications from them?

No. Turning off notifications is invisible to other people. They cannot see whether you have notifications on or off, and it does not change whether you receive messages or see their posts. It only affects what alerts you get on your device.

Can I turn off notifications just from one friend?

Not directly through notification settings, but you can mute that person. Go to their profile, click the three dots, and select Mute [Name]. You will still be friends and receive messages from them, but their posts and stories will not show in your feed and you will not get notifications about their activity.

What if I only want notifications when I am not using Facebook?

Facebook does not have a built-in setting for this, but your phone does. On iPhone, go to Settings > Focus and create a custom Focus that silences Facebook notifications during certain hours or when you are using the app. On Android, use Do Not Disturb or app-specific notification schedules in your phone's settings.

If I turn off notifications, will I miss important messages?

You will not miss the messages themselves — they will still arrive and wait for you. You just will not get an alert when they come in. When you open Facebook or check your messages, you will see them. If you want to keep notifications for messages but turn off everything else, go to Settings > Notifications > Messages and leave only that one on.