Facebook sends you notifications for various activities, such as when someone comments on your post, tags you in a photo, or invites you to an event. By default, Facebook shows notifications from the past week. If you want to view older notifications beyond a week, you can adjust your notification settings.
Why would I want to see old Facebook notifications?
There are a few reasons why you may want to access older Facebook notifications:
- To see notifications you may have accidentally dismissed or missed
- To find an old post, photo, or comment that someone tagged you in
- To follow up on event invites or messages from more than a week ago
- To review notifications during a specific time period in the past
Facebook’s default setting hides notifications older than 7 days to help keep your feed clutter-free. But in some cases, you may still find old notifications useful.
How to see all past Facebook notifications
Here are step-by-step instructions to view all your previous notifications on Facebook:
- Click on the notifications (bell) icon at the top right of your Facebook page.
- In your Notifications tab, click on the arrow next to “Notifications” and select “All Notifications.”
- This will display all notifications from the past with no time limit.
- You can scroll down to load more old notifications.
Once you select “All Notifications,” Facebook will show notifications going back years or to when you first started using Facebook. This lets you dig deep into your notification history.
Using Filters
For more granular control, you can also filter your old notifications:
- Click the filter icon at the top right of your Notifications tab.
- Select filters like Date Range, Posts You’re Tagged In, and Groups to refine the notifications shown.
Setting specific filters lets you narrow down your search and quickly find relevant older notifications.
How to retrieve old notifications on mobile
The process for seeing older Facebook notifications on mobile is similar:
- Open the Facebook app on your iPhone or Android.
- Tap the notifications (bell) icon.
- Tap “More” below your notifications.
- Select “All Notifications” to view notifications beyond 7 days.
This will display all your previous notifications with no time limit. You can scroll down to load more.
The same filters are also available on mobile when viewing all notifications. This allows you to focus on specific types of old notifications.
Turning Off Notification Trimming
Another option is to disable notification trimming completely. This will stop Facebook from removing old notifications automatically:
- Go to the Notifications tab.
- Click the gear icon to access Settings.
- Under “Advanced Settings,” disable “Trim Notifications.”
With trimming disabled, all notifications will be shown with no time limit. But this can clutter up your Notifications tab as old, irrelevant notifications accumulate. It’s usually better to view old notifications occasionally via “All Notifications” instead.
How far back can I view Facebook notifications?
When you select “All Notifications,” you can scroll down indefinitely to view older notifications. So how far back do the notifications go?
Facebook notifications can go back as far as when you first started using Facebook. For most users, that is over a decade’s worth of notifications!
Here is an example of how far back Facebook notifications can go for a user who joined Facebook in 2007:
| Joined Facebook | Earliest Possible Notification |
|---|---|
| 2007 | 2007 |
So unless you’ve selectively deleted old notifications before, accessing “All Notifications” lets you view over a decade of your Facebook history!
Example of old notifications
Here are some examples of very old notifications you may find on Facebook:
- Being tagged in a photo by a friend in 2008.
- A Facebook group invite from when Groups first launched.
- Your firstwall post in 2007 when you joined Facebook.
- Comments on your earliest photos and posts.
Beyond providing nostalgia, these old notifications can help you rediscover forgotten memories from the early days of Facebook.
Do old notifications expire?
Facebook notifications expire and are automatically deleted from your account after a certain period of time.
According to Facebook, here’s how long different types of notifications are kept before being deleted:
| Notification Type | Expires After |
|---|---|
| Post likes and reactions | 1 year |
| Page likes | 1 year |
| Accepted group invites | 1 year |
| Comments on your posts | When post is deleted |
As you can see, most notification types expire after 1 year if you haven’t interacted with them. Comments on posts last a bit longer, until the original post is deleted.
So if you’re looking through years-old notifications, you may notice some gaps or missing notifications that have been auto-deleted over time.
Does this apply to All Notifications?
This expiration does affect the All Notifications view. Even with All Notifications, any notifications older than the expiry period stated above will have been removed by Facebook’s automated systems.
So you cannot rely on All Notifications to see *every* single Facebook notification since you joined. But it should provide notifications going back several years at least.
Can I download my old Facebook notifications?
Unfortunately, there is no built-in way to download or export your old Facebook notifications.
The ability to download your notification history could be useful for reminiscing or record keeping. However, Facebook currently does not allow users to download notifications.
The closest alternative is to manually screenshot your old notifications as you scroll through them. This is time-consuming but lets you capture and save some notification data.
Ideally, Facebook would implement a notification export feature in the future for downloading your notification archive. This would provide more user control over notification data.
Download Your Information from Facebook
While you can’t download notifications specifically, you can request an archive of your general Facebook account information:
- Go to Settings & Privacy > Settings.
- Click on “Your Facebook Information” in the left menu.
- Select “Download Your Information” and choose file format.
This comprehensive archive contains your posts, photos, messages, and profile information. However, your notifications are not included. So it does not replace downloading notifications directly.
Recover deleted Facebook notifications
What if you accidentally deleted an important recent notification? Is there any way to retrieve deleted Facebook notifications?
Unfortunately, once you delete a Facebook notification, it is permanently removed with no way to recover it.
Facebook does not have a “trash” section that stores your deleted notifications for a period of time like your email inbox. Deleted notifications are erased immediately.
So be careful when mass deleting or clearing old Facebook notifications – there is no undo button!
A few tips for deleted notification recovery
While Facebook does not store your deleted notifications, here are some tips to help potentially find notifications you regret deleting:
- Check your email inbox – some notifications like events or Page likes may have also been emailed to you.
- Check the activity log of any Pages you manage for clues.
- View your All Notifications history for context around the time the notification occurred.
- Use Facebook search to try finding the content of the notification like posts you were tagged in.
But there is no guaranteed way to recover a deleted notification short of contacting the person who triggered it. So avoid mass deleting recent notifications just to clear space.
Conclusion
Viewing older Facebook notifications beyond the default 1 week limit is possible using “All Notifications” in your Notifications tab. This displays all notifications with no time restriction, allowing you to access years of Facebook memories and history. Remember notifications are eventually deleted based on Facebook’s expiry rules, so the feature doesn’t provide your full notification archive. Screenshotting is the only way to save old notifications. Recovering recently deleted notifications is unlikely to succeed since Facebook does not store deleted notification data. But with some detective work, you may be able to uncover the context around notifications you wish you hadn’t deleted.