How To Block Someone On Facebook | 2023 Ultimate Guide (2023)

Are you at a crossroads with a Facebook friend? Is blocking your only viable option? It could be due to toxicity, harassment, opposing views, a bad breakup or simply because their posts get on your nerves. Whatever your reason may be, if blocking them improves your mental health, you have every right to do so. But how do you do it? Don’t worry, this article will guide you through the process regarding how to block someone on Facebook.

Key Takeaways

• When you block a profile, it gets automatically unfriended and unfollowed.
• Blocked users don’t get notifications alerting them about the block.
• You may view a profile’s content even after blocking it through mutual friends and tagged content.
• Facebook offers multiple tools that limit your interactions and the visibility of a profile.
• Removing a profile from the blocked list is easy, but unblocking doesn’t add them to your friend list.
• The new “take a break” feature allows you to filter the amount of a profile’s content visible to you and restricts it on Messenger.

This Article Covers:

• What Is Blocking on Facebook?
• How to Block Someone
  • On Desktop
  • On Facebook App
  • On Mobile Browser
  • On Facebook Messenger
• How to Access Your Blocked List
  • On Desktop
  • On Mobile App
• What Can I See After Blocking a Profile?
• What’s Better? Snooze, Hide, Unfollow, Unfriend or Block
• What Is Unblocking and How To Unblock a Profile
• How to Take a Break From Someone’s Profile
• FAQs
• Wrap Up

What Is Blocking on Facebook?

Blocking allows you to restrict a profile from seeing and interacting with your posts, comments and updates. When you block someone’s profile, they won’t be able to:

• Add you as a friend
• See your posts and timeline
• Tag you in statuses, comments and photos
• Chat with you or send DMs
• Send you event and group invitations

When you block a friend, Facebook automatically unfriends and unfollows that profile, removing their activities from your feed. However, keep in mind that blocking and other restrictions are profile-specific — if the blocked person creates a new profile, they can contact you again.

How to Block Someone on Facebook

Desktop

The quickest way to block someone from a desktop browser is:

• Open the person’s profile page.
• Click on the three-dots menu below their cover photo.
• Select Block and hit Confirm on the pop-up that appears next.

Click on the three-dots menu to find the block option.

Facebook App

The steps are pretty similar when you block someone via the Facebook mobile app:

• Go to the person’s profile page.
• Select the three-dots menu beside the messaging option that takes you to the manage screen.
• After selecting Block, a pop-up window will appear asking for your confirmation.
• Pause, reflect and hit Confirm when you’re ready.

Open the profile page and click on the three-dots menu. Source

On Mobile Browser

Follow these steps to block a profile on Facebook via a mobile browser:
Step 1: Visit the profile and locate the three-dot menu beside the Message option.

The profile page interface.

Step 2: Select Block from the three-dot menu.

The three-dots drop-down menu.

Step 3: Again, hit Block in the following pop-up.

The pop-up notice board.

On Facebook Messenger

When you block someone on Messenger, they cannot send messages or call you from their Facebook or Instagram accounts.

Follow these steps to block someone on Messenger:

• Open the chat with the person you want to block and click on the “𝓲” icon at the top right corner of your screen.
• Scroll down to Privacy Settings to find the Block option.
• A pop-up window will appear asking you to select between blocking just the messages and calls or the Facebook profile.
• Choose wisely.

Note: Blocking on Messenger differs from blocking on Facebook, i.e., you can still see and visit a profile on Facebook after blocking it on Messenger. You can see their status, likes, comments and tags based on their settings.

Click on the “𝓲” icon at the top right corner and scroll down to privacy settings.

Recently, Messenger launched the Restrict feature, which you can find right above the Block option. When you restrict someone on Messenger:

• The chat disappears from your conversation list, and you stop getting notifications.
• The restricted user can’t see if you’ve read their messages and your activity status.
• They won’t get any notifications, so you can restrict and unrestrict profiles without their knowledge.

How to Access Your Blocked List

Seeing the list of blocked people is straightforward:

On Desktop

Step 1: Go to your Facebook homepage and click on the down arrow at the top right corner of your screen.
Step 2: Select Settings & Privacy from the drop-down menu and click Settings.

The drop-down menu.

Step 3: Click Blocking in the left-hand panel to see a blocking tool list.

The general settings page.

Step 4: Click the Edit button next to Block Users and select See Your Blocked List in the pop-up window.

List of blocking tools.

On the Mobile App

The process is slightly different if you want to access the blocked list via the Facebook mobile app:

Step 1: Open the app, go to the settings page, and click the gear icon in the upper right corner of your screen. This takes you to the Settings & Privacy page.

Step 2: Scroll down to the Audience and Visibility section.

Click the gear icon and scroll down to audience and visibility.

Step 3: Click Blocking, and you’ll see the list of people blocked from your profile.

The list also provides an alternative method for blocking people. You can find people in the search bar and add them to the list without visiting their profile pages.

What Can I See After Blocking a Profile?

Blocking a person prevents them from directly interacting with you. But you may still encounter them through mutual friends and tagged posts.

Here’s a list of things you can see after blocking a person:

• Messages: Your message history with the blocked person remains in the inbox. Your mutual friends can also add you to a group chat with the blocked person. But you can easily delete or leave a conversation whenever you want.
• Mutual Friend’s Content: If the blocked person and a mutual friend tag each other in a photo, the tagged content will appear on your mutual friend’s timeline, and it’ll be visible to you.
• Groups: You can see if the blocked person is a member or creator of a group, but they can’t view any of your group activities and send you invites.
• Events: The blocked profile cannot send you event invitations, but you’ll be able to see common events to which both of you are invited.
• Games and Apps: Your blocks are ineffective in games and apps developed by third parties. You may encounter a blocked profile in a game’s chat room or as an opponent.
• Marketplace: Buyers can leave reviews even if the seller has blocked their profiles. Similarly, sellers can read and comment on reviews left by buyers who blocked them.
• Additional Profiles: Blocking a person doesn’t carry over to any other profile they have or may create in the future.

What’s Better? Snooze, Unfollow, Unfriend or Block

Facebook wants us to use the block feature as the final straw and offers other tools with varying degrees of constraint. Consider these alternatives before blocking someone:

• Snooze: When you snooze a friend, Facebook blocks their posts, comments and activities from appearing on your news feed for the next 30 days. To snooze someone, you need to find one of their posts and click the three-dots menu on the top right corner of the post. You’ll get options to hide the post or snooze posts from that profile. You can also set the time limit for snoozing posts.
• Hide: It allows you to remove individual posts from your daily feed and not the entire profile. Suppose a friend uploads a movie review filled with spoilers, and you read just the first line. You can still save your movie experience by hiding the post from appearing on your daily feed. Click on the three-dots menu, and choose to hide the post from your profile.
• Unfollow: Unfollowing is useful for keeping people on your friend list whose shares and posts you don’t want to see regularly. It stops their content from appearing on your daily feed. Click the three-dots menu on their profile page, and you can find the option to unfollow them.
• Unfriend: This removes the person from your profile and prevents them from seeing your non-public posts. You can still see their public profile, chat with them (if you’ve enabled non-friend chatting) and send friend requests.
• Block: This is the ultimate restrictive tool that makes you and the blocked user invisible to each other.

How To Unblock a Profile

Unblocking is when you remove a profile from your blocked list and allow them to see your publicly-shared posts and content.

But unblocking a profile doesn’t automatically make them your friend on Facebook. You’ll need to send a request to add them to your list. Also, you won’t be able to block them again for the next 48 hours.

Follow these steps to unblock a person:

• Access your blocked list following the steps mentioned above.
• You can find the unblock option beside each name on your blocked list.

You can also check out our article on how to unblock someone on Facebook for added tips and tricks.

How To Take a Break From Someone’s Profile

Sometimes, it becomes necessary to see less of someone, especially after a breakup or a fallout between friends. Facebook has introduced the new “take a break” feature that allows you to:

• See Less of Someone: Unfollow a person and choose things you want to see from their profile. Facebook stops you from messaging that profile or tagging them in photos.
• Restrict Users: The profile you want to take a break from gets added to your restricted list. They can only see posts you tag them in and your publicly shared photos.
• Edit Visibility: You can edit the privacy settings of old photos, posts and videos to make them visible to only the tagged profiles. You can also individually select profiles that can view your old posts.

Also, you can archive your message threads if you don’t want them popping up in your list every time you open Facebook Chat or Messenger.

The take a break initiation page.

FAQs

What does someone see when you block them on Facebook?

When you block a person, they can’t see your comments, photos, statuses and updates. Also, they can’t send you messages and tag you in photos. If they search your name, the results will not list your profile. If the blocked user has tagged pictures with you on their profile, your tags get removed automatically, and they can’t see your tag on mutual friends’ content.

Does someone know when you block them?

No, the blocked user doesn’t receive any notifications. Blocking is meant to be elusive, and it defeats the purpose if blocked users get alerts when someone blocks them. But there are specific ways to deduce if you’re blocked or not.

How can I know if someone has blocked me on Facebook?

To protect the user’s privacy, Facebook doesn’t show who blocked you or send notifications when you’re blocked.

But there are a few ways to tell if someone blocked you on Facebook or if it’s simply a case of the person deactivating their profile:

• Send a message to a friend using Messenger. If you see, “This person isn’t available right now,” they may have blocked you or deactivated their profile.
• Check your friend’s comments and posts on your timeline. If their name isn’t a clickable link, chances are you’re blocked.
• Ask a third party like a friend or a family member to open your friend’s profile using their account. You’re blocked if they can visit the profile. If not, then the account is deactivated.

How do I unfriend or remove a friend from my Facebook profile?

When you unfriend a profile on Facebook, both of you get removed from each other’s friend list. The unfriended profile won’t be able to see or interact with your private posts and vice versa.

To unfriend someone on Facebook, follow these steps:

• Search for the person and go to their profile.
• Click on the Friends icon adjacent to the Message option.
• Click Unfriend and then Confirm on the following pop-up.

Note: When you unfriend someone on Facebook, they don’t get any notifications.

How can I block someone from my Facebook page?

You can choose to ban people continually posting spam on your Facebook page. They’ll no longer be able to post, react to content and comment on your page. But they can still share your content to other places on Facebook. If you don’t want that happening, consider removing the profile from your page.

Note: Facebook is a public forum, and profiles can like your page again after being removed.

Here are different ways to ban someone from your Facebook page:

From Page settings:

1. Click Settings at the top of your screen.
2. Select People and Other Pages in the left column.
3. Search the profile you want to ban.
4. Click the gear icon beside the profile name and select Ban From Page.

From a post on your page:

1. Select Posts in the left column of your homepage.
2. Click on Visitor Posts.
3. Tap on the horizontal three-dots menu on the post’s top right corner.
4. Select Ban From Page and click Confirm.

From your inbox:

1. Go to your page’s inbox.
2. Open the chat with the profile you want to ban.
3. Click on the three-dots menu at the top right corner of your screen.
4. Select Ban From Page and click Confirm.

Wrap Up

We spend a considerable amount of our time scrolling through social media feeds. But social media is a cesspool of creativity and polarized opinions. You need to filter things you regularly see to keep your sanity intact and prevent yourself from flowing away into a whirlpool of negativity. Thankfully, Facebook makes it simple and inconspicuous to block users (in varying degrees) who cross the line.

It’s also easy to unblock profiles, but remember, it’s far harder to amend relationships in real life. Be wise while using the tools at your disposal and make decisions that enrich your life.

Hopefully, this guide answered your questions about how to block someone on Facebook. Do you feel Facebook needs more restrictive tools? How do you think Facebook can help us filter content and people better? Let us know in the comment box.