Want to see more friends posts on Facebook?
Is your Facebook newsfeed filled with a bunch o’ junk you don’t care to see?
If you miss seeing posts from friends, and the Facebook Pages you love…
Take control NOW! Here’s how.
We’ll run through some newsfeed basics, then delve into how you can tweak what you see.
Checked and updated October 2023.
What Shows Up on Facebook Newsfeed?
Facebook Feed is the constantly updating list of stories on your Facebook home page.
It includes status updates, photos, videos, links, app activity and likes from people, Pages and groups that you follow on Facebook.
Posts that you see in your Facebook Feed are meant to keep you connected to the people, places and things that you care about, starting with your friends and family.
Adam Mosseri, former “Head of News Feed,” will clue you in on how FB determines what to show you:
Facebook shows you what they decide to show you
Here’s the deal. When the average Facebook user logs on, there are potentially thousands of posts from their friends and “liked” business Pages that could be shown to them.
In 2013, Facebook said the average was 1,500 stories, and in 2014, they said it could be up to 15,000. Who knows how many by now!!
For many years, Facebook has NOT been showing you ALL those posts. In fact, there’s no way you could find them all, even if you spent all day and tried really hard 🙂
The FB feed is NOT a waterfall feed, like Twitter, where the most recent posts are shown at the top, and all posts from everyone you follow are shown in chronological order. Nope.
Facebook uses a mysterious Ranking algorithm (formerly called Edgerank) to determine which posts you get to see.
The Facebook Feed algorithm attempts to figure out which posts you most want to see.
Posts that you see first are influenced by your connections and activity on Facebook. The number of comments, likes and reactions a post receives and what kind of story it is (example: photo, video, status update) can also make it more likely to appear higher up in your News Feed.
Posts that you might see first include:
- A friend or family member commenting on or liking another friend’s photo or status update.
- A person reacting to a post from a publisher that a friend has shared.
- Multiple people replying to each other’s comments on a video they watched or an article they read in News Feed.
This screenshot shows what Facebook purports to show you as of September 2022:
Keep in mind that if you feel you’re missing posts you’d like to see, or seeing posts in your Feed that you don’t want to see, you can adjust your settings. We’ll dive into that below!
If there’s a friend or Page whose posts you want in your newsfeed, be sure to to interact with the posts that you do see.
If you’re not seeing any, go to their page and leave likes and comments on a few recent posts.
If you want to see their posts, never hide their posts.
P.S. Please don’t ever hide Fan Page posts – if you don’t like what they post, it’s better for the business if you “unlike” or unfollow the Page.
It’s an algorithm thing 😉
You might also like: Why Can’t I Send a Friend Request on Facebook?
How Can I Fix my Facebook News Feed?
We will first cover how to see the most recent posts, then go into fine-tuning exactly what you do and don’t want to see!
How to see the most recent posts on Facebook
The Facebook News Feed default is to show you the “Top Stories.” That means you’re going to see the posts that have a lot of comments and likes, not what was posted most recently.
Even worse, the more comments and likes they continue to get, the more likely you’ll see the same stories again at the top of your Facebook news feed.
But you can easily change this priority to “Most Recent.” Note: This content was checked on September 19, 2022 and still works.
On desktop, just go to the home page (newsfeed) and click “See more” in the left sidebar.
Then scroll down, down, down until you see “Most Recent.”
Click this and your News Feed will instantly change to the most recent post instead of the most popular post. You can see in the first screenshot, the top post was posted 12 hours ago, and in the second screenshot, it was posted “Just now.”
How to see the most recent posts on Facebook mobile
This is equally easy to set up on mobile. Note that you have to redo this every time you open the app!
From the Facebook news feed or your profile, tap the hamburger menu in the bottom right corner.
Under All shortcuts, scroll down until you see Recent and favorites. You may need to tap See more for it to show.
Simply tap it and you’ll be taken the Recent feed. From here you can also choose to view the Favorites feed.
How to See More Friends’ Posts on Facebook
You can set more granular preferences to see more posts that you want to see, and fewer of those you don’t.
Here’s how: “Favorite” up to 30 friends and Pages, unfollow others, and reconnect to ones you miss later. Or you can “Snooze” them for a time.
Note: Finding the preference settings has been completely changed as of September 19, 2022.
How to edit your Facebook Feed preferences on desktop
1 | Click your mini profile picture in the top right corner of any Facebook page.
2 | Choose Settings & Privacy.
3 | On the next tab, choose Feed. (It seems they no longer call it News Feed).
4 | Uh oh, Facebook is trying something new!
Now you can test out more ways to better control your News Feed. We’ll let you know if this feature goes away.
Well, I did not find better ways to control my feed. What I did find was that my previous preferences had disappeared.
Posts from friends and Pages added to Favorites are prioritized, or shown higher, in your News Feed. Some friends and Pages are already prioritized based on info like your past interactions and things you have in common on Facebook. Adding them to Favorites prioritizes them even more.
I was given 23 Friends and 24 Pages to choose to Favorite. That’s it.
There were Friends from a group I’m active in, and recently added Friends. But none of my old buddies and family members. All 23 choices are new Friends from the past year.
Included were a few Pages I interact with. No idea how they chose the other ones, or why my choices were mostly Pages!
I hope this is a glitch of the change and will be sorted soon.
How to edit Facebook News Feed preferences on mobile
As of September 2022, I could not find Preference settings anywhere on mobile.
1 | Prioritize who to see first in your Facebook feed
Go to the Favorites option. When you add friends and Pages to your Favorites on Facebook, their posts will be shown higher in your News Feed.
Choose whose posts you want to see first, from Facebook friends and “liked” Pages. You can click on the “ALL” button to choose whether to prioritize only friends or only Pages.
Select up to 30 friends you want to see at the top of your news feed! Your selections aren’t ranked. For example, your first selection isn’t seen first, your second selection isn’t seen second.
Once you’ve made your selections with the blue star, click the arrow to go back to set other preferences, or the X if you’re done. Your choices will be saved.
Alternatively, you can click the blue star to un-favorite someone. No worries, they won’t know either way!
If you like, you can choose to see ONLY posts from your Favorites. They’ll show newest first, instead of most popular.
- Go to your News Feed.
- Click Favorites in the left menu. You may need to click See More to see this option. Now your feed shows ONLY posts from your Favorites.
- To see posts from everyone else again, click the house icon at the top of Facebook.
The “Favorites feed” resets to “all posts” every time you open Facebook.
For some reason, you can’t Favorite groups.
2 | How to see all friends’ posts
The way to see ALL friends’ posts on Facebook is to Unfollow people, Pages, and groups you don’t want to see. Leaving just friends!
Click on the next section to choose what you want to stop seeing. When you unfollow someone, you won’t see their posts in News Feed, but you’ll still be “Facebook friends” with them.
Again you can choose to see all kinds at once, or click the “ALL” button to unfollow FB accounts in one category:
- Friends – but not necessarily the friends you want to see!
- Pages – business or Fan Pages you “Liked.”
- Groups you’re a member of.
Either way, you can keep scrolling until you’ve selected all the ones you want to unfollow. Click the blue check to make it gray.
The people, Pages, and groups won’t be notified that you’ve unfollowed their posts.
Click the arrow or the X and move on.
Another option is to unfollow someone when you see a post of theirs in the feed.
- Click the 3 dots on the top right of their post.
- Select Unfollow [Name].
Easy peasy, one and done. Next!
3 | Reconnect with people, Pages, and groups you unfollowed.
If you wish, you can use the next section to re-follow any accounts you previously unfollowed.
You might want to take a minute here to decide if you even want to be connected to these accounts at all.
If you do want to unfriend or unlike, you could right-click to open another browser window and be done with them once and for all. Totally up to you.
When you’re done with this section, click the arrow or X.
How to temporarily unfollow a person, Page, or group
The Snooze section prevents you from seeing certain accounts’ posts in your FB Feed for 30 days. The profile, Page, or group won’t know that they’ve been snoozed.
Snooze someone directly in the feed by clicking the 3 dots to the top right of their post. In the preferences, you can only UNdo the Snooze.
How to Get Notifications when your friend posts
This used to be a thing, but seems to have been removed with New Facebook.
Previously: To get notified when a friend posts on Facebook, hover the “Friends” button and click on “Get Notifications.”
It’s no longer there.
Facebook Group for Friends Only
Here’s an out-of-the-box idea: start a Facebook group.
Invite exactly who you want to see posts from.
Your friends would have to be on board for this to work. They’ll have to post in the group for it to have a chance!
They could crosspost their normal status updates to the group.
Though these posts will also be available in the newsfeed, for best results, members should do one or more:
- Visit the group page occasionally.
- Turn on in-app notifications of their Friends’ posts in the group.
- Enable in-app notifications of Highlights or All posts in the group.
- Turn on push notifications for Highlights in the group.
It’s kind of a long shot, but could work for specific events like a wedding.
It could also work well for content your friends don’t want available to their whole circle of connections.
If you want, you could also create a community chat for the group members.
Time to Take Control!
We covered a lot:
- How the news feed works on Facebook.
- How to see Most Recent posts instead of Top Stories.
- How to see all friends’ posts on Facebook.
- How to unfollow and refollow people, Pages, and groups.
Scroll back and review as needed.
Share this post with a friend if you found it useful!
Let us know in a comment if you have any more tips.
You might also enjoy: How to Find a Facebook Account by Phone Number
Milos says
Hello, very insighful!
What is the update with the “..is friends with..” notification that gets pushed to other people’s newsfeeds? (2023)
1. If my friends list is private, does that mean there is no possibility of this appearing on other peoples feeds? (assuming their friends list is also private)
2. Does this notification still exist, I remember it appearing often with older versions of facebook.
3. Is there any way people could be informed of a new friend?
thanks
Louise Myers says
If your friends list is private or you’ve chosen “Only me” for “Who can see your friend list” then no one else will see them.
I don’t know the answer to the other two. 2, I haven’t seen it, 3, doubtful.
Charash says
Thanks Louise. Excellent information. But when I go to manage my favorites only 22 friends out of 300 show up. I can’t seem to access the rest of my friends on the manage favorites page. Any suggestions?
Louise Myers says
This is an annoying new “feature” of FB. Hopefully someone in the community has a solution. Please let us know if you find one!
Joy says
I searched for each single letter of the alphabet individually which shows up a bunch of people with that letter in their name (still not all of them though).
It was tedious and ultimately all for nothing because it seems facebook has now removed the option to only see favorites in your feed anyway. I think this is the final straw for me, might just go back to talking to my friends in real life instead…
Louise Myers says
IRL is best in many circumstances, but still FB has some benefits, like discovering what’s going on with people you rarely contact.
Not sure why they’ve made picking Favorites so tedious, but I still do have a Favorites feed.
Sandra Bysinger says
About: The Cavachon Forum??
I need to ask a question and not sure where to ask….or how!! BUT we have lots of members wondering what happened to one of our greatest Groups! It just stopped showing up….earlier for those who wrote to me.
Thousands from all over the country…..only talking about our Cavachon dogs and sharing their pictures! Not political comments or disagreements…or nothing else but about our wonderful little Cavachons! Nobody so far has an answer or knows how to find out what happened. A couple wrote to me since I posted a picture from The Forum last week or so…it has been the only link to some of the members….so we are wondering why it would go away for all of us at the same time?? Just shut down?? Can you tell us or forward to someone that CAN TELL US? Thank you for your help…please let me know one way or the other so I can put many minds at ease.. Thank you in advance…
Louise Myers says
I believe the only way to find out is to reach out personally to one of the admins. Perhaps they decided to shut it down.
Fabrizio says
I always use the “Most recent” page, because I want to see all of my friends’ posts chronologically, but when I occasionally switch to “Top stories”, sometimes I notice a friend’s post which does NOT appear in “Most recent”. How does this make any sense?
Louise Myers says
If it’s quite popular, then FB puts it there even if not recent. If it doesn’t meet these criteria, then who knows, it’s FB 🙂
Tim Rowe says
Great article, thanks for sharing all this. I find it very hard to find any recent info about this Newsfeed issue, anything I do normally find is totally out-of-date information due to FB’s constant changes and updates. Just thought I’d share the fact that in the first section of guidance that you show regarding setting FB to show ‘most recent’ posts in the Newsfeed, and you demonstrate how to select ‘Most Recent’ on the desktop version but you can’t find the equivalent on the iphone mobile app, I seem to have it on mine and it seems to work! If I go to the ‘menu’ tab, hamburger bottom right, I have an icon called ‘Recent & Favourites’. Tapping on this does alter my Newsfeed to show posts in chronological order. As you would expect it defaults back to the usual when you re-open FB but that’s par for the course!
Thanks again for a great up-to-date article.
Louise Myers says
Great, thanks so much!
James says
They must have changed it again. A lot of what you showed in screenshots aren’t there anymore. Theres no place that shows most recent and you don’t have an option to see all. Under favorites, it shows around 25 friends where you can add them, but it doesn’t show the rest of your friends to choose from. It does say “We are trying something new. If we will let you know if we remove it. No options to opt out, cancel, etc. I can only scroll for about 6 minutes and then I get “You’re all caught up!” and the same newsfeed starts again. I googled how to fix, but the way everyone says is not an option now.
Louise Myers says
Thanks for the heads up, I’ll check it out.
Louise Myers says
Of 3 things, one is a problem:
1, I didn’t have a problem finding the Recent feed on desktop or mobile.
2, The new Feed preferences are awful. Couldn’t even find them on mobile. I’ll rewrite this section.
3, I tried to find the end of the feed but it just kept going for me.
Chris says
Facebook is so exhausting. I get my feed the way I like and then they change the way they do things again. I REALLY hate the way they prioritize groups because they think that’s what people want. No. I want to see my friends first. It just means I spend less time on it. Clearly what they’re going for. /Sarcasm
Hussain says
Hello sir/madam,
I have changed my fb profile as public to show up for everyone but this is many days that even my friends don’t see my post (profile picture) also no notification is displayed to my friend
thank you
Louise Myers says
Have your friend try adding you to their Favorites.
Gail L Herrschaft says
That doesn’t work I, certain friends, on favorite. All I see is one or 2 of my favorites
Louise Myers says
It’s unfortunate, but Facebook gives us limited control. On my FB I have a few favorites and it seems to work well. Perhaps they won’t deal with more than a certain number.
Dianne Willis says
That is crazy, they have no right to do that, I want more of my friends to be able to see and reply to my post
Louise Myers says
I know, it’s annoying, but Facebook does things however they choose.
Nelson Neocleus says
Thank you for the post, Louise. It appeared, among others, after I put the following question on DuckDuckGo: «Who will see it if I post on Facebook “NewsFeed” for “Specific friends”?» (That was the exact way I typed it.) Your post had little or nothing to do with my question, but that’s a problem with most search engines: they show too many irrelevant things.
If I correctly understand, from reading not only your post but also your replies to other comments, issues of privacy were not among the aims of your post. At least I learned some things about the NewsFeed (and what it is) and I verified that Facebook cannot be private enough.
Louise Myers says
I greatly appreciate your kind comment! It’s rather surprising how a few people will ream me out for not answering their specific question, even if I never intended to. Fortunately they’re few and far between.
I’m glad you learned something regardless. It’s always nice to look at the brighter side!
Have a great day.
Alex Merrin says
According to my experience, the newsfeed is automatically modified as per our likes.
Louise Myers says
Definitely a factor, as noted.
Miguel says
My ios app has suddenly started showing me about 90% Pages posts, 7% friends’ posts and 3% ads. I didn’t change any settings, and my Facebook usage hasn’t changed much to warrant this.
The web page shows me my normal feed. It’s just the ios app.
Spent an hour on the web tonight and can’t find any help beyond “Go back and personalize your news feed.” Any thoughts?
Thank you so much!
Louise Myers says
How strange! Sorry, I haven’t heard of this or how to fix it.
Sue Angilley-Brown says
I go on my newsfeed and can only see a few posts, when I first go on I get the same post at the beginning everytime! I cannot see my family’s posts unless I click on their profile. Every post I’ve seen any how to fix it doesn’t work and I’ve seen that loads of people are having the same issues and a lot are leaving Facebook fur this reason. Why have you, Facebook, got to choose who I see posts from? I’ve friends and family all over the world and I want to see their posts.
Louise Myers says
I’m sorry, Facebook seems to be making this more difficult than we can keep up with to figure out. I can suggest to turn on notifications for those FB friends you really don’t want to miss. If they post a lot, it could be overwhelming so I know it’s not the ideal solution.
oohrah2001 says
So sorru Louise but I don’t think you know what you are talking about, just baffleing us with BS so we do not know what is going on.
Louise Myers says
Interesting. Not sure why you think that, or what I would achieve by doing that. Care to explain?
Sofiane says
I cant sée m’y friends facebook photo strange how i can dix it thanks
Louise Myers says
They may have blocked you from seeing it, or specified an audience you’re not a part of. You can’t change it from your side.
nostra damos says
thank you,saved by your bell.
Jane Doe says
NOT AT ALL happy with this post – feel free to email me directly to respond. I have NOT gone on facebook for over 4 years.I am an executive at Amazon. Tonight, after a glass of wine with my husband, posted commentary to a political post. I have spent 1 hour trying to locate my “wincing” commentary and edit or delete it. I cannot find it. It’s killing me.
Louise Myers says
Dear “Jane Doe,”
Whoever created the post may have deleted your comment or the post itself.
This post has nothing to do with missing comments or posting regrettable ones, so I’m not sure why you’re not happy with the post.
Good luck.
John K says
What’s really odd is that all of sudden it just seems like it stopped loading after the first 5 or so posts. I haven’t changed my settings or my behavior but one minute it’s working fine and the next I click on HOME and I only get a few posts. I can close out of Facebook and the browser, go back in and it may be the same or different 5 posts, but only the 5. A day or two later everything is back to normal without doing anything!
Terry M Overton says
Hi Louise, I love your direct, step-by-step approach to FB problems, so I’m hoping you can answer the other side of a Newsfeed issue. I want to create a new photo album without creating a newsfeed. It’s OK if friends go to my FB Photos/Albums page to view the pictures, I just don’t want to announce the additional album via a newsfeed.
I tried creating the album selecting the “Hide From Timeline” option and I chose “Specific Friends” allowance but that only omitted the post from MY timeline. The specific friends were notified via newsfeed and the photos appeared as well.
How can I set it up so friends do not receive an announcement but are allowed to view all photos by purposely going to my homepage?
I will greatly appreciate your assistance!
TerryO
Louise Myers says
Sorry, I don’t believe this is possible. You could try setting it as private and then opening it to specific friends after publishing, but I can’t say they still wouldn’t get notified.
Riya Ghosh says
I can not see other friends post.. Where from another account i can see them.. I am not blocked from those people but still I can not see their picture or any post which are uploaded by them.. Please help me that i can fix the problem
Louise Myers says
Following the tips in the article should help you see their posts. If you don’t see ANY of them, then it definitely sounds like you’re blocked, or they’ve used settings to exclude you from seeing those posts.
RC says
This absolutely does NOT work – now I, not only still get ‘most recent’ from days ago, but from everyone BUT those I chose!!!
STUPID!!
Louise Myers says
Sorry to hear that.
Marian Osborn says
My ;problem with FB is if I receive a post from a friend or other source, and I want to “share”, with others, I can not. I hit the “share” button, like I always have, and my friends are not receiving these posts. The computer says it is on my “timeline’, and it is. But no where else. My computer lady sent me this eamail, as she can’t seem to find the problem.
PLEASE HELP.
Thank you
Marian Osborn
Louise Myers says
Shared posts re given low priority in the news feed, so it’s likely they’re not seeing them. In addition, the original post’s privacy settings may preclude your friends from seeing them at all.
Michelle says
Great article! Wondering if you have any suggestions on how to address my newsfeed that keeps stopping at only a handful of posts. Or, I’m getting a message that says “Welcome to Facebook” even though I’ve been here for years. Thanks for any suggestions you can provide. As you can imagine, it’s super-frustrating.
Louise Myers says
I’m not sure, as I haven’t encountered these before, but the first one sounds like you may be on a slow internet connection. The second sounds like you’re not signed in – or possibly again, a flaky connection.
Mia says
I’d like to know this too. Every so often, fb cuts off the newsfeed after a few posts, and you can’t see any old posts from like 5 min ago. At the bottom it says:
“Welcome to Facebook.
Find your friends on Facebook. When you’ve done so you can see their posts and photos here.”
No problem with internet or being logged out. This has been going on for years. This happens when I want to see posts in most recent order.
Dom says
I am absolutely furious at FB. I created a group (on spirituality). Its something I consider private and did not want friends and family to see it. Without my permission, FB started showing pictures and post I made in this group to anyone who is friends with my personal account. I never invited anyone of them to the group – so they should never have seen group content. I am now forced to make the group private which will significantly reduce exposure the for group to grow since I am staring it brand new.
Louise Myers says
I’m sorry. FB does give us some means for privacy, but they are quite difficult to know in advance, and to set up.
Deb Jacobson says
Thank you for the information. Is there a way to turn off Events that people are going to? I see way too many of events that I don’t care about.
Louise Myers says
Unfortunately, I don’t think you can turn off specific things related to friends’ activity.
Maureen Garver says
I’m not who else is having issues but I’m going to assume it’s not just me. Things have changed since this was originally published. I’ve done everything you’ve suggested and certain sites continue to NOT show up on my wall….at all. I have to go to those pages if I want to see their current articles. Very frustrating.
Louise Myers says
Facebook changes ALL the time. Here’s a more current article (only 5 months old as opposed to 2 years and 8 months) but still may not deliver what you want:
https://louisem.com/247428/facebook-news-feed
Courtney says
This was so kickass! I love your direct writing style.
John says
Thank you for your info but do you know of anyway I can see “most recent” on my PAGE? Business Page? Thank you.
Louise Myers says
Hi John,
There don’t seem to be any options for the Pages Feed.
Angela Gentile says
Thanks for this helpful post, Louise. However, I am having trouble with the instruction for “Edit Your Facebook Favorites List.” Has there been a recent change? I can’t get one of my liked pages to show up on my favorites list. When I hover over “Pages”, there is no “More” option. Please help! Thanks kindly.
Louise Myers says
I still see “More” on mine, BUT I think there’s an alternate way to add your Page to Favorites.
Go to the Page and click on Settings. Add to Favorites should be at the top of the General screen.
Good luck 🙂
Rebecca Haden says
This is such a useful post, Louise! I bet a lot of people have no idea that they can shape their Facebook feeds.
Louise Myers says
I’m so glad you liked it, Rebecca, and thanks for sharing.
Frances Caballo says
What a great post. I learned a few ninja tricks here!