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up vote 4 down vote favorite

I logged into Facebook today to see this:

Facebook Email Hassle

I don't want a Facebook email address. I loathe the concept of receiving email via Facebook. I don't want people to even attempt to send me email through Facebook.

Is it possible to disable Facebook email? To turn off the "feature" completely? If not, is there a way to automatically discard any messages that come in through it?

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2 Answers

up vote 6 down vote accepted

No, there is no way to disable your email address currently.

All email that isn't currently recognized will go to the "other" folder, you will not be notified of those.

Corrected Info

Your Other folder contains messages sent to mailing lists and broad distribution groups, along with messages from people who aren’t friends or friends of friends.

Based on your email preferences (http://facebook.com/settings/?tab=privacy -> How You Connect), the sender may not even be able to send a message to your account and may receive the following message,

Based on the email preferences of the person you're trying to email, this message could not be delivered.

You could push a step further and report messages as spam.

From my experience, the Messages platform has been pretty seamless when it comes to the lack of spam. Then again, I have not explicitly made my Facebook email address known publicly.

So, to repeat, if you have not made users aware of your Facebook email address, there is little to no chance of you receiving an email from them.

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Bummer. I'm inclined to believe you, but do you happen to have any reputable sources for this, e.g. Facebook documentation and the like? – nhinkle May 9 '12 at 5:42
@nhinkle Documentation on the "other" filtering? facebook.com/help/…? Documentation on how to change who can email you? facebook.com/settings/?tab=privacy > How You Connect – phwd♦ May 9 '12 at 5:46
Hmm. From looking at the 2nd link, it appears that it's set such that even with my email address, anybody who isn't Facebook friends with me wouldn't be able to send a message via email. I tried sending an email from an account not associated with my FB account, and it didn't show up in Other. I then got an email back from FB saying "Based on the email preferences of the person you're trying to email, this message could not be delivered." – nhinkle May 9 '12 at 6:00
@nhinkle well that's even better ;) – phwd♦ May 9 '12 at 6:02
If you update your answer @phwd to include that info, I'll mark it as accepted. If you'd rather, I can post a separate self-answer with screenshots. Up to you! – nhinkle May 9 '12 at 6:06
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up vote -1 down vote

Yes there is : http://www.facebook.com/editprofile.php?sk=contact

In the "Emails" section select "Hidden from profile" from the second drop-down menu on the right.

And just to make sure, I also selected "Only me" from the first drop-down menu.

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2  
That doesn't really disable it, it just hides it. Useful info on how to hide it, but if people get your facebook address, they can still send emails to it even if you hide it on your profile. – nhinkle Jun 27 '12 at 21:24

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