Today I’m going to share with you how to turn off notifications for a single Facebook post, and control what you see and when.
Use these instructions if Facebook usually notifies you with an email when there’s a new comment on a post by somebody.
Why would I want to turn off notifications on a Facebook post?
Sometimes you want to post a comment on a Facebook post but you don’t want to see all of the replies and comments that come after it. Why might this be? Here are some examples …
- Your friend has had a good (or bad) event in their life and posted about it, and you want to post a message of congratulations or support but you know about a million other people are going to post a similar comment and you don’t want lots of emails flooding your mailbox.
- You’ve entered a competition by commenting on a business’s post but you don’t want to see all the other entries.
- You’ve commented on a news item someone’s shared but it’s quite upsetting and you don’t want to be reminded of it every time someone else comments.
These instructions work for posts in either your main timeline or a Facebook group, but they look slightly different so I’ve broken it down into two sections.
So, how do I prevent Facebook from emailing me every time there’s a comment, if I don’t want to change my whole Facebook alerts settings?
How do I turn off Facebook notifications in a post on my timeline?
If you want to keep a post available in your timeline (i.e. you don’t want to hide it) but you don’t want to get notifications of further comments on the post once you’ve commented, here is how to Stop notifications.
First, find and press the little down-arrow in the top right-hand corner of the post:
This will give you a menu of things you can do:
You can see here that you can also Hide the post or unfollow the person who posted it. But we want to click on Turn off notifications at the bottom of the list.
Now Facebook will confirm what you’ve done:
This is useful, as you can click Turn On Notifications if you did this by mistake.
If you want to turn your notifications back on at any time (so that you receive an email every time someone else comments), go and find the post, click on the down-arrow and choose Turn on notifications:
Now you will receive an email every time someone comments on the post.
How do I turn off Facebook notifications on my own post?
Of course this is slightly different – if you want to turn off notifications on one of your own posts, you get more options when you click that down-arrow:
How do I turn off Facebook notifications in a Group?
If you are a member of a Facebook Group but choose not to have it come up in your timeline (for example, if you’re in a photo-a-day group and would end up with 80 posts a day in your Facebook timeline), there’s a slightly different way to turn off notifications.
In this example, a friend has posted about the Great British Bake-Off and another friend has mentioned, and tagged me in their comment, that I haven’t seen it yet and will be watching it tomorrow. I don’t want to see any more comments in case someone lets slip who’s left the competition.
Click on the little down-arrow in the top right corner of the post …
This will bring up a menu. Here you can also report a post as spam if you need to – but we’re going to concentrate on turning off the notifications. You do that by clicking on Turn off notifications:
Once you’ve done that, you’ll see a message above the post telling you that you will no longer get notifications about this post. This means that whenever anyone comments on the post, you won’t get an email telling you that this has happened.
Note that you will also see a clickable link allowing you to Turn On Notifications – which is very useful if you’ve done this by accident. You can click Turn On Notifications to make sure you still get comments emailed to you:
If you want to turn notifications back on for a post, go and find the post (you haven’t hidden it, so it will still be in your timeline or the group it was posted in). Click on the down-arrow again and choose Turn on notifications:
Now you will receive an email every time someone comments on the post.
This post has shown you how to turn off notifications in your Facebook timeline, on your own posts and in Groups. You can find more on social media in the Resource Guide or by using the Search box in the right-hand column.
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The Story Reading Ape
August 28, 2015 at 9:54 am
Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog and commented:
In case you ever need to know 😀
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Eric Klingenberg
August 28, 2015 at 1:21 pm
Thanks helpful info.
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Lee
February 6, 2017 at 9:05 am
wait, so i have to do it for every single post I ever make a comment to?
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Liz Dexter
February 6, 2017 at 9:08 am
No, this is if you want to suppress seeing replies and comments on one particular post. If you go to your own settings and notifications, you can turn it off globally there. Hope that helps!
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Amber
April 28, 2017 at 7:00 pm
If i turn off notifications for a post that I’ve commented on, and then after that someone tags me in a comment on that post or the post is edited and I’m tagged.. will i get a notification?
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Liz Dexter
April 28, 2017 at 7:04 pm
I don’t believe so, but the best way to check would be to test it with an obliging friend …
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Jaclyn Davis
October 19, 2017 at 10:35 am
If i turn notifications OFF,on posts,in a GROUP,will others in the group also get notifications stopped and will they know if i have stopped notifications on my mobile?
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Liz Dexter
October 19, 2017 at 10:50 am
If you turn notifications in a group off for yourself, it won’t affect anyone else. The group will not know what is happening with your notifications. This applies if you’re the member of a group. If you’re the group moderator, you might be able to turn all notifications off, but I don’t think that’s what you’re asking. I hope this helps!
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Gail
December 12, 2017 at 2:44 pm
May I ask can you do it for reminders too? I turned off notifications but now keep getting reminders that it is off?
How ridiculous!
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Liz Dexter
December 13, 2017 at 9:07 am
Oh dear – I’ve never had that before, I’m afraid. Have you tried turning notifications back on then immediately off? I can’t find anything in the notifications section of my account profile that will turn that off. How annoying!
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Regina Sosa
January 3, 2018 at 3:35 am
Maybe my question has been asked but I’m not sure so here goes… I have a few groups that I have joined but I don’t want to see a notification every time someone posts a comment or picture since they are not my friends list. I still want to see pics in my news feed. Is there a way that only my notification will come on if I am tagged/mentioned? I don’t want to turn off all notifications.
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Liz Dexter
January 3, 2018 at 6:27 am
I don’t think you can do this and still see the photos in your newsfeed (presumably just the photos from your friends). I have notifications turned off in a photo group I’m in and I still get an email notification when I’m tagged or mentioned, but the photo doesn’t show up in my newsfeed. Let’s hope they change this soon as it is tricky to deal with.
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srikanth
September 3, 2019 at 10:14 am
Thanks for sharing this information
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Liz Dexter
September 3, 2019 at 10:29 am
You’re welcome!
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Mike
January 27, 2020 at 8:37 pm
You need to update this, it really no longer works
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Liz Dexter
January 27, 2020 at 10:16 pm
I did this just the other day to not get notifications on a post!
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Erin
June 18, 2020 at 12:10 am
Will i still get a notification if someone replies to my comment, though? Is there a way to set that up but turn off notifications for other new comments that don’t involve me?
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Sandra sparks
November 19, 2023 at 8:23 pm
How do I get gross pics of diseases off my facebook
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Liz Dexter
November 20, 2023 at 9:25 am
Oh dear, that’s not fun! If they are ads or sponsored content you should be able to click the x to hide them then I find that choosing “already purchased” is the quickest way to get rid of things. You can usually ask to hide all from that particular page at that point, too. I hope that helps.
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