You choose who can send you Facebook friend requests in Settings, under How people find and contact you, and there are only two options: Everyone or Friends of friends. Setting it to Friends of friends is the single biggest cut to requests from strangers and fake accounts. For requests that still arrive, deleting one is silent, and the sender cannot send you another for a year.
Change who can send you friend requests
Meta's steps on a computer are:
- Click your profile picture in the top right of Facebook.
- Click Settings and privacy, then Settings.
- In the left menu, scroll to Audience and visibility and click How people find and contact you.
- Click Who can send you friend requests?
- Choose Everyone or Friends of friends from the drop-down menu.
In the Facebook app the same setting sits under Settings and privacy, then Settings, in the section about how people find and contact you. You can also reach it through Privacy Checkup, which includes a step called How people can find you on Facebook covering friend requests and phone or email lookup.
Everyone versus Friends of friends
| Setting | Who can send requests | Suits |
|---|---|---|
| Everyone | Anyone on Facebook who can find your profile | People who want to be easy to reach, such as those who recently moved or are reconnecting with old contacts |
| Friends of friends | Only people who share at least one friend with you | Most people, especially anyone getting requests from strangers |
There is no setting that turns friend requests off completely, and no option to allow requests from nobody. Friends of friends is the most restrictive choice. If you want to add someone who has no mutual friends with you, you can still send them a request yourself.
Keep in mind that Friends of friends is only as tight as your friends list. If a friend accepts requests from anyone, fake accounts can use them to become friends of your friends. That is one reason Meta advises not accepting requests from people you do not know.
Control who can look you up
Friend request settings work alongside discovery settings. In the same How people find and contact you section, you can choose who can look you up using the email address or phone number you gave Facebook. Tightening those settings means fewer strangers find your profile in the first place, which reduces requests before the request setting even applies.
Accept, delete or ignore requests
Incoming requests appear in the Friends section and in your notifications. You can confirm or delete each one. Meta's documented route on a computer is to go to facebook.com/find-friends and click Delete or Delete request.
What deleting does, according to Meta:
- The sender is not notified.
- They cannot send you another friend request for one year.
If you want to stop someone sending requests for good, block them. Meta notes that blocked people cannot send more friend requests.
Requests that disappear
Sometimes a notification says you have a friend request, but you cannot find it. Meta gives three reasons: the sender deleted the request, you already declined it, or the sender deactivated their account after sending it. If their account is still active, you can send them a request yourself or ask them to send another.
Cancel a request you sent
To withdraw a request you sent, go to your sent requests list, or search for the person and open their profile. Click View sent request, then Cancel request. You cannot cancel a request that has already been accepted. At that point the only option is to unfriend.
Followers are a separate setting
Friend requests and followers are related but not the same. When you become friends with someone, they automatically follow you, which means your posts may appear in their Feed. Meta is changing how following by non-friends works:
- The Public follower option is being removed from default profiles gradually.
- On a default profile, only friends can follow you.
- If you want people who are not your friends to follow you, you turn on professional mode for your profile.
Meta also notes that people who send friend requests you ignore or delete can automatically start following you where your settings allow public followers. If your profile allows followers and you do not want a particular person following, blocking them is the reliable fix.
Spotting fake and scam requests
Meta warns that scammers create fake accounts to friend people. Becoming friends with a scammer can let them spam your timeline, tag you in posts and send you malicious messages. Warning signs include:
- A request from someone you do not recognize and share no real connection with.
- A second request from someone you are already friends with. The existing friend's account may have been cloned.
- A new profile with few photos, few posts and a large number of friends.
- A message soon after accepting, especially one with a link, a request for money or a request for a verification code.
If a request looks like a copy of a friend's account, check with the friend through another channel before accepting, and report the fake profile if it is one.
People you may know
Many unexpected requests come from Facebook's People you may know suggestions, which put your profile in front of people Facebook thinks you might know. Meta has Help Center articles explaining where those suggestions come from, how to manage the information used for them and how to hide the suggestions from your Feed. Meta also lets you control who it can suggest your profile to based on your email address or phone number. That matters if you added a phone number or email to your account for security or login and would rather not be surfaced to people who already have those details.
If you cannot send requests yourself
Facebook can temporarily block people from sending friend requests, and Meta has a dedicated Help Center article for that situation. Meta's separate guidance on who to send friend requests to recommends sending them only to people you know and trust in real life. For someone you find interesting but do not know personally, such as a journalist or public figure, Meta suggests following them instead of sending a request.
A sensible setup
Set Who can send you friend requests to Friends of friends, restrict who can look you up by email and phone number, and delete requests from people you do not know rather than leaving them pending. Block anyone who keeps trying. Then glance through your friends list once in a while and remove accounts you do not recognize, since those are the accounts that let strangers count as friends of friends.
