Having too many Facebook friends, especially inactive ones, can make your newsfeed cluttered and less personal. While Facebook doesn’t have a direct way to remove inactive friends all at once, there are some methods you can use to prune your friends list of old and inactive connections.
How to Identify Inactive Facebook Friends
First, you’ll need to figure out which friends are no longer active on Facebook. Here are some ways to identify them:
- Check your newsfeed – Make note of friends who haven’t posted or interacted in a long time.
- Look at photos and posts – Friends who rarely appear in photos or post on your wall are likely inactive.
- View your chat list – If certain friends haven’t been online or you haven’t chatted with them in ages, they may be inactive.
- Check their profile activity – Clicking on a friend’s profile, you can see when they last posted or liked something. If it’s been over 6 months, they are likely inactive.
Doing these checks regularly can help you keep track of who is actively using Facebook vs who has abandoned it.
How to Remove Inactive Friends Individually
Once you’ve identified your inactive friends, here are some ways to remove them one-by-one:
- Unfriend them – Visiting a friend’s profile, you can click on the Friends button and select Unfriend.
- Block them – Blocking also removes them from your friends list. Click on the 3-dot menu on their profile and choose Block.
- Restrict them – Restricting stops their posts from showing up but keeps them as a friend. Click on Friends button and select Restrict.
While you can only remove friends individually, this works well for getting rid of inactive connections that you want to prune quickly.
How to Remove Friends in Bulk
If you have a lot of inactive friends to remove, doing it one-by-one can be tedious. Here are some methods to remove inactive Facebook friends in bulk:
Use Facebook’s Contacts Tool
Facebook’s contacts tool lets you compare your friends list against your phone and email contacts. You can use it to remove friends who aren’t contacts:
- Go to your Facebook profile and click Friends in the left menu
- Click Find Friends in the left menu bar
- Click on the Contacts link at the top
- Choose to compare Facebook friends with imported contacts from Yahoo, Gmail or your phone
- For each non-contact friend it finds, choose Remove from Friends List
This can prune many inactive friends at once, especially those you may have added but never interacted with.
Use a Third-Party App
There are apps and browser extensions that let you bulk remove Facebook friends:
| App | How it Works |
|---|---|
| Social Book Post Manager | Chrome extension that lets you filter and delete friends who haven’t posted in X days. |
| Friend Check | App that identifies inactive friends and lets you mass remove them. |
| FBFriendPurge | Tool that deletes friends who haven’t posted in 6 months. |
Apps like these can prune hundreds of inactive friends quickly, doing the hard work for you. Be sure to check reviews and permissions before using any third-party apps though.
Use Facebook’s Data Download
You can download all your Facebook data, including a full list of friends, as a CSV file. You can then clean up this list manually or use Excel formulas to flag inactive friends.
To use Facebook’s data for removing inactive friends:
- Go to Settings > Your Facebook Information
- Click View next to Download Your Information
- Select Friends as the info you want to download
- Once the file downloads, open it in Excel and sort, filter or use formulas to identify inactive friends
- Delete or block friends directly on Facebook as needed
This takes more work but gives you total control over pruning your inactive friends.
Other Ways to Clean Up Inactive Friends
In addition to removing them, you can also organize inactive friends with Facebook Lists:
- Acquaintances List – Move inactive friends out of your main Friends list and into an Acquaintances list. Their updates will show up less often.
- Restricted List – Add inactive friends to a Restricted list so you stay connected but don’t see their posts.
You can also adjust News Feed preferences to see more posts from active friends:
- Unfollow – Unfollowing inactive friends means you stay friends but don’t see their posts.
- Snooze – You can snooze friends for 30 days to temporarily see fewer of their posts.
- Prioritize Close Friends – Make sure posts from your active close friends show up first in your feed.
Conclusion
It takes a little bit of work, but pruning inactive friends helps keep your Facebook experience focused, vibrant and more social. The best approach is:
- Regularly check for inactive friends
- Remove them individually or in bulk
- Organize the remaining inactive friends with lists
- Prioritize active friends in News Feed
Staying connected with close friends and family will make Facebook a lot more meaningful. Don’t let inactive friends clutter up your digital social life!