Facebook uses several factors to determine which friends to display in your shortcuts bar, including how often you interact with certain people, the strength of your friendships on Facebook, and suggestions based on friends who appear in other users’ shortcuts.
Most Interacted With Friends
The main factor Facebook uses to populate the shortcut bar is how often you interact with certain friends on the platform. This includes viewing their profiles, commenting on or reacting to their posts, messaging them, etc. Friends you interact with the most frequently are most likely to show up in your shortcuts.
So if you tend to view your best friend’s profile, like their photos, and message them every day, they will almost certainly appear in your shortcuts bar. On the other hand, an old classmate you rarely interact with likely won’t make the cut.
Close Friends
Beyond your raw interactions, Facebook also analyzes the depth of your relationships to determine which friends are closest to you. So even if you don’t view your childhood best friend’s profile often, your long-standing close friendship means Facebook will likely put them in shortcuts.
Facebook determines closeness through things like how long you’ve been friends on the platform, how many mutual friends you share, whether you’re family members, if you’ve interacted outside of Facebook, and more. So shortcuts favors real-life close friends over casual acquaintances.
Recent Interactions
Recency also plays a role in shortcuts. If you’ve started interacting frequently with someone you weren’t close to before, they may pop up in your shortcuts for a while thanks to the uptick in engagement.
For example, if you suddenly start commenting back and forth with a new coworker every day, you’ll probably see them in shortcuts for some time. But if the interactions taper off, they’ll likely drop back out.
Suggested Friends
Finally, Facebook analyzes which friends appear in other users’ shortcuts sections, and uses that information to make suggestions. So if several of your closest friends have a certain person in shortcuts, Facebook may add that person to your shortcuts as well.
This allows Facebook to surface friend connections you may have overlooked. If three close friends have your college roommate in shortcuts but you don’t interact with them often, Facebook might suggest adding them based on those connections.
Controls Over Your Shortcuts
While Facebook’s algorithm decides the default shortcuts, you do have some control over the section yourself:
- You can pin up to 8 friends to shortcuts to keep them there permanently.
- You can hide anyone from appearing in shortcuts in the future.
- You can reorder and rearrange your shortcuts.
So if you want certain friends to always appear no matter what, you can pin them. Or if you don’t want a particular person showing up, you can hide them. But Facebook’s algorithm will continue populating any remaining empty slots based on your interactions.
Summary
Facebook primarily puts your most frequently interacted with friends and closest relationships in shortcuts. But it also uses suggestions based on broader patterns and recent activity spikes. While you have some customization options, Facebook’s algorithm aims to surface the people most relevant to you at any given time.