How to Stop Friend Requests on Facebook

If you receive friend requests from people you do not know, Facebook lets you narrow who can send requests to your profile. Open Settings & privacy → Settings → How people find and contact you → Who can send you friend requests? and choose Friends of Friends if that option fits your needs. Meta's privacy troubleshooting guide lists Everyone and Friends of Friends as the available choices. It does not list a universal “Nobody” switch.

This setting affects requests coming to you. It does not cancel requests you already received, stop requests going out from your account, remove you from every suggestion, or make your profile invisible. Those are different questions with different controls. Use the section below that matches what you actually saw.

Limit new requests to friends of friends

On Facebook's desktop site, select your profile picture, then Settings & privacy and Settings. Under Audience and visibility, open How people find and contact you. Select Who can send you friend requests? and choose Friends of Friends. These are the labels in Meta's current Help instructions. If you use a phone, start in the app's settings and look for the same setting name; the menu position may vary by app version and device.

This choice narrows the pool of people who can send a request. A person with a mutual Facebook friend may still be able to request you. Someone without a mutual friend might not see an option to add you, but the setting is not a promise that you will never receive an unwanted request. If you want people outside your existing network to be able to connect, Everyone may serve you better. Review the choice on your own account instead of assuming another person's screenshot describes your settings.

Changing the setting does not erase a request already in your queue. Open Facebook's Friends or Friend requests area and review pending requests individually. If a request is unwelcome, use the Delete or Remove action shown for that request. Do not confirm a profile merely to clear the notification. If a specific account keeps bothering you, Facebook also offers blocking and reporting controls; choose those based on the actual behavior. Meta's safety tools explain those choices.

If friend requests appear to be sent from your account

A message such as “Why are you adding me?” or an unexpected entry in sent requests is an outgoing-request issue. Changing Who can send you friend requests? will not address it, because that setting concerns requests other people send to you. First check whether the message refers to a pending friend request, a contact invitation, or a suggested profile. They can look similar from the recipient's side but are not the same action.

For a pending request you sent, open Facebook's Friends area and look for View sent requests, or open the person's profile while signed in to the account involved. If Facebook shows a pending request that you do not want, use the available Cancel request control. Meta's sent-request Help entry says pending requests can be canceled from a person's profile or the sent-requests page. The exact location of that view may differ between desktop and mobile. If a request was already accepted, it is no longer pending; review the friendship or blocking controls instead of expecting a cancel button.

If you find several requests you do not remember sending, do not assume Facebook automatically generated them. Another person with account access, a previously shared device, an accidental tap, or a different kind of invitation could explain what someone saw. The record you can inspect and your account's security state matter more than guessing at a cause. Save the names and dates you can verify, then review your account security promptly.

Meta's Security Checkup is a starting point. Review devices where your account is logged in, remove unfamiliar sessions, use a strong password that is not shared with another site, turn on two-factor authentication, and consider login alerts. If you cannot access the account or see other activity you did not authorize, use Facebook's hacked-account recovery from a device you have used before. Do not send your password or a one-time code to someone who offers to “fix” the requests.

Meta's privacy troubleshooting guide also distinguishes contact invitations from normal friend requests. Uploading contacts can give a person a choice to invite a contact to Facebook. Meta says delivered email or SMS invitations cannot be recalled, but uploaded contacts can be removed to stop further invitation reminders. Check this possibility if someone received an invitation rather than a request visible in your sent-request list.

Friend suggestions are another setting question

Seeing a person under People You May Know does not by itself mean you sent them a friend request or that they sent one to you. Likewise, a search engine link to your public Facebook profile is separate from your incoming-request choice. Meta's privacy guide describes the external-search-engine setting separately. Adjusting that search setting cannot undo a pending request, and changing the incoming-request setting does not guarantee that Facebook stops suggesting your profile. Avoid instructions that promise a single “No one” switch for every suggestion surface.

Which action should you take?

• Too many requests coming to you: Review Who can send you friend requests? and choose Friends of Friends if the narrower audience is right for you. Then remove any pending requests you do not want.
• A request you sent by mistake: Find the pending entry in sent requests or on the person's profile and cancel it if Facebook offers that action.
• Requests you did not knowingly send: Check the sent list, then review active sessions and security settings. Use Meta's recovery process if account access appears compromised.
• A contact received an invitation: Check contact-upload settings and the invitation type. Removing uploaded contacts may prevent further reminders, but it cannot recall an invitation already delivered.
• You only saw a suggested profile: Confirm whether there is an actual incoming or outgoing request before changing your friend-request setting.

These checks keep incoming requests, outgoing requests, invitations, and suggestions separate. If Facebook's menu does not match a step here, search its Help Center for the exact setting name shown on your device and use the controls your account displays.