Facebook recently added friends – How long is classed as recently added?

When you become friends with someone on Facebook, you will instantly have access to almost everything on their profile including photos, videos, posts and any other information that they have made visible to their friends on the platform.

Being ‘recently added’ doesn’t have an impact on what you can and can’t see yet Facebook still decides to make this information known to you and all of your friends.

In this article, we are going to explain how you can go about finding your ‘recently added friends’ list, as well as your friends’ lists. And, we’ll also examine the length of time that users will sit in this list until they are replaced or just disappear. Let’s get started.

Facebook recently added friends – Where to find this information

There are two main reasons really why you would want to go looking for this information on Facebook.

You may be interested in looking at the people you have personally made friends with in recent weeks, or you might just want to view other users’ friendship activity.

Either way, it’s a really easy list to find regardless of whether you want to look at your own or someone else’s.

To find yours or someone else’s recently added friends on the mobile phone app, please follow these instructions:

1. Log on to your Facebook account.
2. Navigate to your Facebook profile or search for the account whose friends list you wish to see.
3. Select the ‘friends’ option to bring up a view of all of your/their friends.
4. From the filters on the top of the screen, select ‘recent’.
5. The subsequent page will be a list of all the friends which you/they have added recently.

To find yours or someone else’s recently added friends on Facebook via a web browser, please follow these instructions:

1. Log on to your Facebook account.
2. Navigate to your Facebook profile or search for the account whose friends list you wish to see.
3. Select the ‘friends’ option to bring up a view of all of your/their friends.
4. Here, you will see many more options/filters than you will see on the same page on the mobile phone app. Look for ‘recently added’ and select it.
5. The subsequent page will be a list of all the friends which you/they have added recently.

We know that Facebook doesn’t suggest friends that look at your profile, however they can be related to people you’ve recently added. You can easily find someone’s recently added friends by going to their account and using the filter.

You need to be using the Desktop version of Facebook to do this, not the Facebook mobile app. But, what exactly does Facebook mean by ‘recently added’? Let’s find out.

What Facebook means by “recently added”

Although there is nothing concrete one way or another in regards to specific time frames, it is presumed that friends which appear in the recently added friends tab have been added within the last month/30 days.

After this timeframe has passed you can expect all users within this tab to simply move to your overall friends list. If you haven’t added anyone new in the past month then this tab will disappear until you add someone new.

Surprisingly, there are no privacy settings available to you to remove this tab, meaning if you are trying to keep a new friendship a secret then you are going to have to employ different tactics (more on that shortly).

Without these tactics, you are leaving yourself open to people snooping around your recent friendship activity and potentially drawing incorrect conclusions about your personal life.

How to prevent others from seeing who you add on Facebook

While there is no way of making the ‘recently added friends’ tab private, there is something you can do to stop people from being able to keep tabs on your friendship activity as a whole.

You are able to do this via the mobile app or via Facebook on a web browser using the methods explained below:

On the mobile phone app

1. Log on to your Facebook account.
2. Select the three lined icon on the bottom right hand side of the screen and select ‘settings and privacy’, followed by ‘settings’.
3. Scroll down to ‘audience and visibility’ and select ‘followers and public content’.
4. Select ‘who can see the people, pages and lists you follow’ button and change the privacy settings to ‘only me’.
5. Save your changes.

Via a web browser

1. Log on to your Facebook account.
2. Select the downward arrow on the top right hand side of the screen and then ‘settings and privacy’, followed by ‘settings’.
3. Select ‘privacy’ from the left hand side menu bar.
4. Select ‘edit’ next to ‘who can see the people, pages and lists you follow’.
5. Change the setting to ‘only me’.

From now on, other users on Facebook, including your friends, will only be able to see the total numbers of friends on your profile.

Your actual list of friends, including those you have recently added, will only be accessible by you.

Additionally, any new activity regarding new friendships you make won’t be broadcast on your friends’ news feeds.

Conclusion

To conclude, there isn’t an official length of time stated by Facebook when it comes to figuring out who qualifies as a ‘recently added’ friend, although we estimate it to be around one month.

If you are conscious about people seeing who you are adding on the platform then follow the steps above to protect your privacy.