What Happens When You Unfollow Someone on Facebook

When you don’t like someone’s posts, you may think of unfriending them. Now unfriending is a big step, and the person would easily know. No one wants to be so apparent and change the dynamics of their relationship. That’s where unfollow helps you. In this post, we will tell you what happens when you unfollow someone on Facebook (FB).

Facebook offers many features to stop interacting with someone. Those include snooze, take a break, unfriend, and mute. Unfollow is also one of them. It’s quite helpful in situations when you don’t want to unfriend someone but still stop seeing their posts on your feed.

Let’s see what the aftereffects of unfollowing someone are. To understand that, you need to know what is follow on Facebook. Let’s start with that.

What Does Follow Mean on Facebook

There are two ways in which you follow someone on Facebook. Firstly, when you are friends with someone on Facebook, both of you automatically follow each other. So adding a person makes you follow them. Now, one of you can unfollow the other person. But unlike unfriending, this is a one-way street. We will get into the details of unfollowing below.

Secondly, if you aren’t friends with someone, you can follow them if the person has enabled followers. When you follow someone, you can see their public posts, and they will appear on your newsfeed. Again, it’s a one-way street. Meaning, they don’t need to follow you back. And since they don’t follow you, your posts will not appear in their feed. They will have to follow you or add you as a friend to see your posts.

What Does Unfollow Mean on Facebook

Unfollow in simple terms means to stop seeing someone’s posts on your newsfeed. Unfollow, similar to follow, is a one-way thing. When you unfollow someone, it’s done from your end only. Nothing changes from their side. They continue to follow you if you are friends. So all the conditions to follow will remain true on their end until they unfollow or unfriend you (if you are friends). When you unfollow a friend, you continue to be in each other’s friends list.

Now let’s what happens for various things when you unfollow someone on Facebook.

What Happens to Their Posts and Stories

The main use of unfollowing someone is to stop their posts from appearing on your newsfeed. So when you unfollow someone, you will not see their new posts and stories on your feed. However, if you open their profile, you will be able to see both past and new posts and stories depending on the privacy settings of posts. Basically, instead of appearing automatically on your feed, you have to check the posts and stories if you want to manually.

Can Unfollowed Friends See My Posts and Stories

Yes. As explained above, unfollowing is a one-way journey. It doesn’t change anything from their end. Your posts and stories will still appear in their newsfeed if you are friends. In case you want to stop your posts from appearing in their feed, you should restrict them.

When You Unfollow Someone, Do They Know

No. Whether you unfollow a friend, non-friend, group, or a page, the other person isn’t notified about the same.

If You Follow Them Again After Unfollowing, Will They Know

Not in the case of pages and groups. But it depends on whether you are friends or not when it comes to normal profiles.

If you are friends and you follow them back after unfollowing, they will not be notified about it. However, if you follow a non-friend again after unfollowing them, they will be notified about it. Want to know who unfriended you on Facebook? Check out our guide.

What Happens to Likes and Comments

Nothing changes for likes and comments. The other person can still like and comment on your posts. And so can you, if you check the posts directly from their profile.

If You Unfollow Someone, Can They Message You

Yes. Both of you can message each other.

Can You Still Post On Timeline

Yes, similar to comments and likes, you can still post on each other’s timelines if you are friends. Again, it depends on your individual privacy settings for posting on the wall.

Can the Unfollowed Person Tag You

Yes. Both of you can still tag each other.

Whom Can You Unfollow

You can unfollow your friends, non-friends (if you followed them), pages, and groups on Facebook.

What Happens in Pages and Groups

Similar to profiles, when you unfollow a page or group, their posts will stop showing up on your feed. However, you aren’t removed from the group. You will still be a group member and able to view the posts by opening the group or page.

How Long Does Unfollow Last

Unfollow stays until you manually revoke it, i.e., you follow the person again. If you want to unfollow someone for a short duration only, you should check out Facebook’s Snooze feature, which lasts for 30 days.

How to Unfollow on Facebook Web and Apps

Here are the steps for pages, groups, and profiles.

How to Unfollow on Web

Open the user profile and click on the Following button. Select Unfollow.

Open the page and click on the Following button. Click on Unfollow.

Open the group and click on Joined button. Select Unfollow.

How to Unfollow on Android App

For profiles, open their profile and tap on Following. Tap on Unfollow.

For liked pages, open the page and tap on the three-dot icon. Select Following. Then, tap on Unfollow.

To unfollow a group, open the group and tap on the three-dot icon at the top. Tap on Following. That will make you unfollow the group.

How to Unfollow on iOS App

Open the profile and tap on the friends icon. Then, tap on Following and select Unfollow.

Open the page and tap on the three-dot icon. Select Following from the menu. Then, choose Unfollow.

For groups, open the group and tap on the three-dot icon. Tap on Following.

When to Unfollow Someone

You should unfollow someone when you don’t like what they post on Facebook. For instance, if someone only posts good morning and similar photos, unfollowing such people would be a fair choice. Similarly, if you are going through a breakup and you don’t want to see their posts on your feed, you can unfollow them. However, a great alternative would be to use the Take a break feature.

Next up: Find out how Facebook’s Take a break, unfollow, and unfriend differ from one another from the link given below.