Facebook Messenger: You Can Now Completely “Ignore Messages” from Your Friends— You Can Even Read New Messages without Marking Them as Read/Seen.
It’s better than “muting.”
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UPDATE (2019): This article was written in *2017*, but is still getting a lot of pageviews as of 2019. This functionality still exists, but the screenshots below are now outdated.
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Tired of receiving messages from annoying friends on Facebook Messenger? Facebook recently added a feature to completely “ignore messages” from your friends.
(I confirmed this on November 17, 2017, on both iOS/Android Messenger apps as of version 143 and on both American/Japanese Facebook accounts. Searching Twitter with “messenger ignore messages” suggests that this has been beta-tested in the Philippines.)
Upgrade your Messenger app to the latest before following the instructions below.
How to “Ignore Messages” from Your Friend? And What Happens After That?
Step 1: Go to the Contact Screen on Messenger
Select a friend whose messages you want to ignore, and go to their contact screen. On iOS, tap the person’s name:
On Android, tap the “i” icon on top right:
Step 2: Tap “Ignore Messages”
Scroll down and tap “Ignore Messages”. On iOS:
On Android:
It’ll show a warning like this, but just tap “Ignore Messages”:
Step 3: You’re Done!
As shown on the warning message above:
- You now won’t be notified when your “ignored” friend messages you. Unlike blocking, your “ignored” friend can still message you though.
- The messages are now moved to “Message Requests” section, so you’ll no longer see the messages on your home screen, including new messages. This is different from “muting” and “archiving”, which will turn off notifications but will still show new messages as they arrive.
- Your “ignored” friend won’t know that you’re ignoring them.
In addition:
- If your “ignored” friend sends you new messages, you can view them without marking them as read/seen.
- You can always “un-ignore” your friend.
Let me show you how it works.
Messages Are Now Moved to “Message Requests”
From the navigation menu, find the “People” screen which has the “Message Requests” section. I’ll show the iOS screens, screens should look similar on Android.
Tap “Message Requests,” and you’ll see your “ignored” friend here.
If you tap your ignored friend, it should show “Delete” and “Reply” buttons.
- Until you tap “Reply,” your “ignored” friend’s new messages won’t notify you.
- Also, until you tap “Reply,” even if you read your “ignored” friend’s new messages, they won’t be marked as read/seen on your “ignored” friend’s side.
Try It With Your Friend
I tried this feature with my brother. After “ignoring” my brother, I had him send me some messages.
Those new messages didn’t show up on the app’s home screen. I can read them from “Message Requests”, but they weren’t marked as read.
That’s All!
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P.S. I’m getting tons of questions regarding this feature, but unfortunately I can’t answer most of them because I don’t work at Facebook. I’m sorry.
