Not everybody wants to reach that 5K friend milestone on Facebook. Constantly getting friend requests from strangers can become quite annoying. And Facebook might be the guilty part here, but we have a solution. Here’s how to stop Facebook from suggesting me to others.
The Facebook suggestion section is designed to help your friends find you and make worthy connections. However, it gets in your way more often than not. So let us help you prevent your profile from appearing in ‘people you may know’ suggestions.
How Do I Prevent Facebook from Suggesting Me to Others
While Facebook has no built-in option to remove your profile from the People you may know section, there are workarounds. We’ll need to tweak some Facebook privacy settings to manipulate how Facebook picks suggestions for people and hide your Facebook profile from suggestions.
Decide How People Can Find You on Mobile App
Tap the three-line icon → scroll down to Settings & privacy → Settings → select ‘How people can find and contact you’ from under Audience and visibility.
Here change the following settings,
- ‘Who can send you friend requests?’ – Change it to Friends of friends.
- ‘Who can see your friend list?’ – Change it to any other option except for public.
- Toggle off ‘Allow search engines outside Facebook to link to your profile’.
On Facebook Web
Open the Facebook website and log in → click your profile picture → select Settings & privacy → Settings.
Next, select Privacy from the left sidebar → from the ‘How people find and contact you’ section. Here edit the following settings,
- ‘Who can send you friend requests?’ to Friends of friends.
- ‘Who can see your friend list?’ to any other option, except for public.
- Disable ‘Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link your profile?’.
Although this might affect some of your experiences on Facebook, the good news is that doing so should keep you from appearing under “People you may know.” And just to be sure, there are a few more privacy settings you can change; skip to the next section.
Tip: If you don’t want your friends from different groups mingling with each other, stopping other people from seeing your friend list might help.
Change Privacy Settings to Hide Your Facebook Profile From Suggestions
On Mobile App
Tap the three-line icon → scroll down to Settings & privacy → Settings → select ‘Followers and public content’ from under Audience and visibility. Here, tap ‘Who can see the people, Pages, and list you follow’ and change it to Only me or Friends.
On Facebook Web
Log in to your Facebook account → click your profile picture → select Settings & privacy → Settings → select Privacy from the left sidebar. Here, click Edit next to ‘Who can see the people, Pages, and list you follow’ and select Only me or Friends.
Tip: Some experts suggest that disabling location services for Facebook also helps stop your profile from showing up in suggested friends on Facebook. Although it can affect other features like location tagging, you can try it if you wish.
Bonus: Block “People You May Know” Notifications
Not just prevent your profile from appearing in ‘people you may know’ suggestions but also stop these suggestions from popping up on your Facebook profile.
On Mobile App
Tap the three-line icon → scroll down to Settings & privacy → Settings → select Notifications from under Preferences. Here, tap ‘People you may know’ and toggle off the switch next to ‘Allow notifications on Facebook’.
On Facebook Web
Log in to your Facebook account → click your profile picture → select Settings & privacy → Settings → select Notifications from the left sidebar. Here click ‘People you may know’ and toggle off the switch next to ‘Allow notifications on Facebook’.
Tip: The suggestion feature is not limited to Facebook; it also extends to Messenger. And thankfully, you can remove someone from suggested on Facebook Messenger.
Avoid Being Featured in People You May Know
While you can’t permanently stop Facebook from suggesting your user profile to other users, tweaking your privacy settings could help. While using Facebook is fun, unnecessary notifications like birthday reminders can spoil your experience.
Last updated on 04 November, 2023
The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.
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