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I get too many irrelevant Facebook notifications from friends of the activities which do not involve me at all. This include status updates, posting pictures, sometime comment replies and what not. I am not sure if I get these from all friends or a chosen few.

This is what my notifications look like

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These are my notification settings

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I tried contacting Facebook support so many times. Never received any response.

"Get Notifications" option is already unchecked for these friends. I even tried enabling "Get Notifications" and then disabled it just to make Facebook aware of it but it didn't stop notifications.

It looks a like a way to keep me active but instead it has made me leave Facebook for a very long time. What settings should I do to disable these notifications?

Update

New settings UI allow you to turn off these notifications easily.

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    I was also really annoyed by this. Facebook makes it ridiculously hard to find but I finally figured it out. You have to enable Desktop notifications then refresh the page and under the heading "CONTROL YOUR RECENT NOTIFICATIONS" (it's in all caps) turn off the ones you don't want. Then you can turn off Desktop notifications again. Would have posted this an answer but I don't have the required 10 reputation.
    – Patrick
    Commented May 10, 2019 at 23:46
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    It looks like this question might be outdated. There's a top-level toggle Updates From Friends that you can turn off.
    – Carl Walsh
    Commented Oct 19, 2019 at 16:05
  • @CarlWalsh does it really work?
    – LifeH2O
    Commented Oct 20, 2019 at 18:43
  • @CarlWalsh new settings UI is much better
    – LifeH2O
    Commented Oct 20, 2019 at 19:12
  • Update after one week of turning it off: I stopped getting "$Friend added a video/photo/update" so it looks like the new toggle works! But I started getting "new friend suggestion" notifications 3x daily which hopefully slow down before they become spammy.
    – Carl Walsh
    Commented Oct 30, 2019 at 4:31

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
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It's Facebooks way of getting you to use more Facebook. Which in your case, failed miserably.

They send these notifications to people who haven't had much of interaction on facebook to have a page full of notification.

Unfortunately, the way to get rid of these is to use more Facebook, get more friends and to interact with them. Just so that they can replace these notifications with something else.

Source: I've seen those when my mom signed up for Facebook and abandoned it for some days. Her notification was full of these craps.

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    That at least sort of answers the question! I used to use facebook all the time and these days I rarely do, but when I do it's full of all this crap! The stupid thing is that it makes me want to use it far less...
    – Some_Guy
    Commented May 22, 2018 at 21:48
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Some friends are designated "close friends" and you get updated on everything they do. Try checking specific friends you get a lot of notifications from. Make sure they're not listed as close friends (Sometimes FB will do this without telling you).

Directions:
1. Go to the profile of the friend in question.
2. At the top of the profile, in the cover photo, locate the friend status dropdown menu. It's on its own row.
3. Change status from "close friends" to "friends" or "aquaintances."

You'll have to do this for each friend. Report back if it works!

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    "Close friends" was already unchecked. When I clicked on it, it changed to ☆ Friends on cover. I disabled it and changed back to ✓ Friends. I checked all friends, none of them is listed as Close Friend.
    – LifeH2O
    Commented Apr 17, 2018 at 8:30
  • Does making them acquaintances help?
    – Amelia
    Commented Apr 17, 2018 at 13:34
  • I now changed some friends to Acquaintances. Let's see if this works.
    – LifeH2O
    Commented Apr 30, 2018 at 8:01
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    I am still getting notifications from them after making them aquaintances
    – LifeH2O
    Commented May 6, 2018 at 4:27
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As answered by Patrick in the comments of the question, they hid the turn off option too deep.

First, Enable desktop notifications

desktop notifications

Then disable recent notifications

disable recent notifications

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First make sure that these friends are not added any kind of list like Close Friends or any Custom List.

You can turn off notifications for Close Friends:

You’ll automatically get notifications when people on your Close Friends list post to Facebook, but you can turn these notifications on or off:

  1. Click down arrow in the top-right and select Settings.
  2. Click Notifications in the left column.
  3. Click Close Friend Activity, then click On Facebook.
  4. Click next to Close Friends activity, then select On or Off

If you're getting notifications when people post and they aren't on your Close Friends list, learn how to receive fewer notifications.

If above doesn't help, try this:

On your phone:

  • Go to Account Settings
  • Go to Notifications
  • Go to Mobile Push under the section How You Get Notifications
  • Uncheck Activity you've missed and anything else you rather not be notified about
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    Close Friends notifications are already off. Mobile notifications are also off. I removed all friends from all lists. Still getting notified of everything.
    – LifeH2O
    Commented Apr 27, 2018 at 11:00

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