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5 ways to clean up your Facebook news feed

Get the news you want without the stuff you don't want.

Matt Elliott Senior Editor
Matt Elliott is a senior editor at CNET with a focus on laptops and streaming services. Matt has more than 20 years of experience testing and reviewing laptops. He has worked for CNET in New York and San Francisco and now lives in New Hampshire. When he's not writing about laptops, Matt likes to play and watch sports. He loves to play tennis and hates the number of streaming services he has to subscribe to in order to watch the various sports he wants to watch.
Expertise Laptops, desktops, all-in-one PCs, streaming devices, streaming platforms
Matt Elliott
2 min read

Has your Facebook news feed become a jumble of uninteresting or annoying posts that you skip over to get to the stuff you do care about? It doesn't have to be that way. Facebook offers a handful of tools that let you weed out the stuff you don't want so you can more quickly get to the stuff you do want. These tips are based on the Facebook mobile app.

1. Hit the snooze button

Maybe your friend is over-posting about a new job, a new relationship or a new diet. If you want to hide someone's posts temporarily, Facebook now lets you hide their posts for 30 days with its new snooze feature. Just tap the triple-dot button next to the post of the person, brand, group or news outlet you want to banish from your news feed for 30 days and tap the Snooze option.

facebook-snooze
Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET

2. Hide post

If you want someone's posts to remain in your news feed but with less frequency, you can tell Facebook to show you fewer posts from that person. Tap the triple-dot button next to one of their (many) posts and tap Hide post. That current post will be hidden, and you'll see fewer posts from that person.

Watch this: Clean the clutter out of your Facebook news feed

3. Unfollow someone

Facebook's Unfollow option lets you stay friends with someone but stop seeing their posts in your news feed. Just tap the triple-dot button next to the post of the person you no longer want to hear from and tap the Unfollow option. You'll stop seeing that person's posts and he or she won't know you are no longer following their Facebook activity.

4. Block/unfriend someone

The nuclear option is to unfriend someone. If you are ready to part ways with a Facebook friend, go to their profile page, tap the little down-arrow button and choose Block. Blocking someone will unfriend them, and they will no longer be able see your posts or tag you in any of their posts. They will not be notified that you unfriended them, but they still might see your name is no longer on their friends list.

facebook-block
Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET

5. Report a post

If you come across a post that you find offensive, you can report it to Facebook. Tap the triple-dot button next to it and tap Give feedback on this post. Facebook will give you a few options to describe how the post is offensive -- violence, harassment, suicide or self-injury, hate speech and others. Facebook will review the post and remove it if it doesn't follow the Facebook Community Standards. Your name and information will be kept confidential if Facebook contacts the person behind the offensive post.