Facebook has made some changes over the years to how birthdays are displayed on the platform. In the early days of Facebook, birthdays were prominently featured on a user’s profile page and news feed. However, in 2014 Facebook made some adjustments to where users can find friends’ birthdays.
Where are birthday notifications on Facebook?
When one of your Facebook friends has a birthday, you will still get a notification about it. This notification will appear in a few places:
- At the top of your News Feed
- On your homepage next to the Friend Requests icon
- Possibly also in your email inbox, if you have email notifications from Facebook enabled
So Facebook still actively notifies you of friends’ birthdays, but the notification shows up in your feed instead of on your friend’s profile.
Are birthdays still shown on profiles?
Facebook used to prominently feature friends’ birthdays right on their profiles, but in 2014 they removed birthdays from profiles. Now when you visit a friend’s profile, you will no longer see their birthday listed there.
Where can you see friends’ birthdays?
If you want to actively check when a friend’s birthday is, there are still a couple places you can find it:
- On the bio page of their profile, if they have added their birthday to their bio
- In your own Facebook Events list, where birthdays are listed as an event
- In your Facebook Calendar, where friends’ birthdays get added automatically
So the information is still there, it just takes an extra click or two to find it compared to the old prominent profile placement.
Why did Facebook move birthdays?
Facebook has said that the reason for moving birthdays off of profiles was to declutter the page and focus profiles more on personalized information users actively add about themselves.
Birthdays are seen as more passive information, so Facebook moved them to places like the news feed where they are still visible but don’t take up prime profile real estate. This was part of an overall effort to streamline profiles.
How can you highlight a birthday on Facebook?
If you want to make sure your friends see and acknowledge someone’s birthday, there are still a few ways you can highlight it:
- Post a birthday wish on their Timeline
- Create a Facebook birthday event and invite friends
- Mention the birthday when making a Timeline post
- Change your profile picture to one celebrating their birthday
Using statuses and events helps call attention to the occasion since profiles no longer have that front-and-center birthday callout.
How do I find my own birthday on Facebook?
To find your own birthday on Facebook:
- Go to your profile
- Click on the About section
- Click Contact and Basic Info
- You will see your birthday listed here, which you can click to edit
This is the only place your birthday is displayed. It won’t show up on your main profile anymore, but is still visible in your bio info.
Can I hide my birthday fully?
If you don’t want your birthday visible anywhere on Facebook, you can hide it completely:
- Go to your bio info as explained above
- Delete the date in the birthday field
- Save the changes
This will remove your birthday from Facebook entirely. No friends will be notified of your birthday, and it won’t be listed anywhere on the site.
Conclusion
Facebook made some big changes to birthday displays in 2014, removing them from profiles and moving notifications to the news feed. It takes a bit more work to actively check a friend’s birthday now, but the information is still present in bios, events, and calendars.
If you want to be sure someone’s birthday gets proper attention, you can create birthday posts and events to spread the word. But overall, birthdays now have a much lower profile presence on Facebook than in the past.
| Where birthdays used to be | Where birthdays are now |
|---|---|
| Prominently on profiles | Notifications in news feed |
| Listed in sidebar | In user bios |
| Featured on homepage | In events and calendar |
It takes some adjusting to navigate the new birthday landscape, but the key days are still honored by Facebook. It just may require more proactive steps like posts and events to make them stand out now that profiles are no longer bringing the birthday front and center automatically.
But with some minor adjustments, you can still make sure friends feel special on their big day with creative posts and outreach. The features are all still there, they’ve just been rearranged to streamline the profiles. With a few tweaks to your habits, you can have birthdays feeling just as prominent as in Facebook’s early days.
Birthdays have been a staple of the platform since the beginning, so Facebook is unlikely to ever remove them completely. They are just adapting to shifting priorities in how information is displayed as the network evolves. But you still have plenty of tools to highlight those important calendar days for your friends list.
Facebook’s motto remains focused on connecting people, and birthdays have always been a key part of fueling those connections. So you can expect them to continue playing an important role in the user experience, even if that role looks a little different today than it did 10+ years ago at the company’s inception.
The sites’ and apps’ tools may change over time, but the ability to make your friends feel special on their birthday will always be a hallmark of the services Facebook provides. It just requires staying flexible as different features come and go.
But the notifications and ability to highlight the occasion will persist in one form or another. Facebook’s fundamental purpose remains tied to life events like birthdays, so you can expect support for them to carry on into the future, regardless of how profiles and feeds evolve.
After all, what good is a social network if you can’t rely on it to help celebrate the big days with your friends? Facebook recognizes birthdays’ importance, so guides users to the newest ways of recognizing them even through redesigns. You just need to find where the features have moved, and carry on spreading the birthday love as you always have.
Adjusting to change is always tough. But Facebook still offers plenty of options for making birthdays memorable within the new designs. It just takes some relearning to navigate where the key features have moved. But the capability is all still there if you know where to look.
Plus, you can always reach out to Facebook support if you need help finding where a specific birthday feature relocated. The company’s priority remains connection, so they ensure you still have access to the tools you need, even if the interfaces evolve.
While it may take patience and practice to adjust to new layouts, Facebook still has your back when it comes to honoring those milestone days. You’ll get the hang of the new birthday scheme with time. And your friends will appreciate you making the effort to find where their special days shine.