As Susan Taylor Brown pointed out in the comments of yesterday’s post on Facebook’s new feed options, the current default is that FB will only show you updates from 250 friends in your Live News Feed, no matter how many friends you have. Again, there is a fix. And even if you don’t have that many friends now… you might one day soon!
If you are not familiar with the changes to Facebook’s feed options, you might want to check yesterday’s post first.
With your Live News Feed showing, scroll down to the bottom of the page. Do you see this?
If so, skip the next paragraph. If you do NOT have Edit Options visible on the right hand side, read on. There might be a more traditional way to solve this problem, but what follows is what worked for me. I’m open to hearing other solutions!
To make Edit Options appear, while in the Live News Feed, hover your mouse over any update until the “Hide” option appears to the right of it. Click “Hide” and hide that friend. Now, scroll to the bottom of the screen and you will see “Edit Options” as in the image above. (Note that when you hide someone, you also get an “edit options” choice right by the update you hid. However, clicking on that only lets you control who is in your feed and does NOT let you change the default number of people visible.)
Click “Edit Options” at the bottom of the page. This will bring up a new window for you. In the bottom left of the window, you’ll see:
Change that 250 to a higher number – I chose 5,000, the maximum number of friends FB currently allows. IF you had hidden a friend to get this box to appear, you should now click the X by their name in this same window to UNhide them. Click SAVE.
You’re done! You’ll now see all your friends’ updates in your Live News Feed, not just 250 who Facebook chooses. Again, if anyone has an easier fix, please let me know.
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Greg, this was awesome – you made it so easy! I tried to follow other explanations, but since I didn’t have “edit options” visible, I was stumped. Thanks for being so thorough! Now I can see all 5,000… er… well, all my friends in the feed.
Namaste,
Lee
Hey – for some reason that number of friends box didn’t come up for me. Any thoughts?
Thanks, Lee. And Jennifer – my best guess is that you weren’t viewing the Live News Feed but rather the News Feed (or Status Updates).
If it’s not that, let me know….
You guessed right. Thanks!
There is yet one more step after that, just to make things more confusing.
Below the box where you just typed in 5000, there is a link that says, “View Recommended Friends” These are the people Facebook has decided you should see.
When you click on it, you will see your friends’ faces & names. Some have a blue background – those are the ones in your feed. The people who have no background, just on white, are people who are hidden.
I found that SO MANY of my friends were not blue highlighted & therefore were not appearing.
CLICK ON THEIR FACES & TURN THEM BLUE TO SEE THEM IN YOUR FEED. Then hit SAVE.
Marjorie Light´s last [type] ..Lesson Questions
I did this, Marjorie, but I got tired of clicking and clicking on All didn’t do anything. So after clicking on 200 or so, I clicked Save. But then when I opened it back up to click on some more, those 200 were not blue. Only the original ones that had been blue were still blue. Any thoughts?
Laura – Hmmm…that is odd. Try doing just one or two and see if it happens again for you. Mine have stayed blue since I changed them. I’m sorry I don’t have a solution!
Marjorie Light´s last [type] ..Lesson Questions
Nope, nada. So bizarre. I’m clicking Save, but it’s not saving any of my changes. Ah, Fickle Facebook.
Oh, well, thanks for trying to help.
:>)
Laura
Interesting, Marjorie – I will poke and play around. While I understand Facebook’s logic of not showing you EVERYTHING, you’d think it would be easy to give yourself that option, if that’s what you want. Sigh.
Greg Pincus´s last [type] ..Electric Melon Drum Circles
It is frustrating for me to miss important status updates from my family because FB has chosen who/what I see. One interesting thing I read from a research article is that the links people post are more likely to show in a news feed than anything else. I wonder what the reasoning behind that is?
Marjorie Light´s last [type] ..Lesson Questions
Very interesting Marjorie! I didn’t know about this option … wen I bring up the Recommended Friends list, though, nobody’s highlighted in blue.
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That IS odd! Mine actually had some which were pale blue, which FB had chosen for me (randomly), the white ones – people I hide, and now the dark blue – ones I clicked & chose. Ever since I did this, I see so many more feeds.
Marjorie Light´s last [type] ..Lesson Questions
Thanks, Greg. I think I was missing a lot.
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Thanks, Greg! I’m looking forward to seeing updates from all my friends now, not just 250.
Greg, thanks for sharing all this, very useful!!!
Thank you for sharing your knowledge Greg.It’s a big help for me.I’m now excited to see not just 250 updates from my friends list but more!more!more..Great job!
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