Facebook’s birthday notifications allow you to get reminders about your friends’ and family members’ birthdays. When enabled, Facebook will send you a notification on the day of someone’s birthday to remind you to wish them a happy birthday. This can be a great way to make sure you don’t forget to acknowledge the birthdays of people close to you. Here are some quick answers about Facebook birthday notifications:
– Birthday notifications are enabled by default. If you aren’t getting them, you likely turned them off at some point.
– You can turn birthday notifications on or off in your Facebook Settings.
– Birthday notifications will be sent on the morning of someone’s birthday.
– The notifications show up just like other Facebook notifications – in your notifications menu and as red notification bubbles.
– You can only get birthday notifications for friends you are connected to on Facebook.
If you want to make sure you get your Facebook friends’ birthday notifications, here are step-by-step instructions on how to enable them:
How to Turn Facebook Birthday Notifications On
Enabling birthday notifications is simple and only takes a few steps:
1. Log into your Facebook account on a desktop computer or mobile browser.
2. Click on the arrow in the top right corner of your screen to access your profile menu.
3. From the menu, choose “Settings & Privacy”.
4. On the left side of the page, click “Settings”.
5. Click on the “Notifications” tab at the top of the Settings page.
6. Under the “Birthdays” section, make sure the toggle button is switched to the On position. It will turn blue when activated.
7. Scroll down and click “Save Changes” at the bottom of the page.
Once you’ve saved your changes, you will start getting birthday notifications again. Facebook will send you a notification on the morning of any friend’s birthday to remind you.
You can also enable or disable birthday notifications from the Facebook mobile app:
1. Open the Facebook app on your iPhone or Android.
2. Tap the three-line menu button in the bottom right corner.
3. Choose “Settings & Privacy” from the menu.
4. Select “Settings”.
5. Tap “Notifications”.
6. Under “Birthdays”, make sure the toggle is switched to On.
7. Exit back to Facebook when finished.
Now you know how to make sure you never miss a friend’s birthday! The process is quick and easy whether you use Facebook on desktop or mobile.
How Facebook Determines Whose Birthdays to Show You
Facebook’s algorithm determines whose birthdays you’ll be notified about based on a few factors:
– **Close friends:** Facebook will prioritize displaying notifications for your close friends and family members first. It determines this based on how often you interact with them.
– **Recent interactions:** If you’ve been engaging with a friend more lately, such as liking and commenting on their posts, you’re more likely to be notified about their birthday.
– **Shared connections:** Friends of friends whose birthdays are approaching may also trigger a notification.
– **Listed birthdays:** Any friends whose birthday you’ve specifically added to your own birthdays list will always trigger a notification.
So in summary, Facebook aims to notify you about the birthdays that matter most – close friends and family. But it also factors in recent interactions and shared connections to provide other relevant notifications.
How to Add a Birthday to Your Facebook List
You can manually add any friend’s birthday to ensure you always get a notification:
1. Go to your friend’s profile page.
2. Click on the “Friends” dropdown below their cover photo.
3. Select “Add Birthday” from the menu.
4. Enter their birthday when prompted.
5. Click “Save” to add it.
Once added, this friend’s birthday will trigger a notification every year.
How to Prioritize Certain Friends
To make sure Facebook notifies you about specific close friends, be sure to frequently engage with their profiles and posts. Commenting, liking, and interacting with their content tells Facebook you want to see updates from them at the top of your feed and notifications.
You can also add those VIP friends to lists like “Close Friends” or “Family” to signal they are high priority. Facebook pays attention to how you organize friends into different lists.
Lastly, you can mute other friends whose birthdays you don’t need notifications for. Muting someone will remove their birthday from your notifications for the year.
Where Do Facebook Birthday Notifications Appear?
When you’ve enabled birthday notifications, Facebook will send you alerts through these areas:
– **The notifications menu:** The bell icon at the top right of Facebook will display a red number to indicate how many new notifications you have. Click it to see your latest birthday alerts.
– **Notification bubbles:** Unread notifications also trigger red bubbles to appear around the notifications icon. The number shows your total unread notifications.
– **Email:** If you’ve enabled email notifications, Facebook can also send birthday reminders to your email inbox.
– **Facebook mobile app:** Open the menu and select “Notifications” to see your latest birthday and other alerts.
– **Groups:** If someone in a Group you’ve joined has a birthday approaching, the Group may get a notification post from Facebook reminding members to wish them a happy birthday.
So in summary, the notification centers on desktop and mobile are your main destination for Facebook birthday alerts. But they may also appear in other areas like your email or Facebook Groups.
How to Mute Birthday Notifications
If you are getting too many birthday notifications, or want to mute certain people, you can disable notifications in a couple ways:
– **Turn off all birthday notifications:** Return to your Notification Settings and switch the Birthdays toggle off. This will stop ALL birthday notifications.
– **Mute specific friends:** Go to the profile of the friend you want to mute and click on the “Follow” button below their cover photo. Choose “Unfollow” to mute just that friend’s birthday.
Muting someone means you will stay Facebook friends, but their birthday and other posts won’t trigger notifications. You can toggle mute on and off anytime.
You can also mute friends right from a birthday notification. Just click the X icon in the top right corner of the notification, then choose to unfollow/mute the person.
How to Temporarily Snooze Birthday Notifications
If you don’t want to fully mute someone but need a break from their notifications, you can snooze them:
1. Click on the arrow in the top right of Facebook to open your menu.
2. Choose “Settings & Privacy” then “Settings”.
3. Click “Notifications”.
4. Locate the “Snooze Notifications” section.
5. Enter the name of the friend to snooze.
6. Select how long you want to snooze them for, from 30 minutes to 24 hours.
7. Click “Snooze” to confirm.
This will temporarily block notifications from that friend without unfollowing them. Great for short term muting!
Troubleshooting Facebook Birthday Notification Issues
If you aren’t seeing birthday notifications properly, here are some troubleshooting tips:
– Double check that birthday notifications are enabled in your Notification Settings.
– Make sure the notification didn’t get marked as read already. Check your notifications menu.
– Try scrolling through your News Feed – Facebook may have posted a birthday announcement.
– The friend may have hidden their birthday on Facebook, preventing notifications.
– Facebook’s servers may be experiencing temporary issues. Try again later.
– Update the Facebook app or refresh the desktop page to clear any glitches.
– Make sure your account privacy settings allow friends to post on your Timeline.
– As a last resort, disconnect then reconnect your Facebook account to refresh everything.
Following these tips should get Facebook birthday notifications working again. It’s a very useful feature for remembering friends’ special days!
Conclusion
Facebook’s birthday notifications provide a great way to stay on top of your friends’ and family’s birthdays. By turning on notifications and following the steps above, you’ll never miss out on wishing someone a happy birthday again. Facebook’s algorithms do a good job of surfacing the most relevant birthdays, but you can tailor things with your own birthday list and by muting certain friends. If you ever run into issues with birthday notifications, try the troubleshooting suggestions to debug. With this guide, you should now be getting timely reminders about your loved ones’ birthdays!