How to Restrict Someone on Facebook
Restrict someone on Facebook so they stay a friend but only see your public posts, with no notification. How it differs from unfriending, blocking, and muting.
Updated
Quick answer
Where to click
- Friends button
- Restrict
- search their name
- three-dot menu
- Restrict
Facebook renames these menus periodically. If a label does not match, read the screen you are on rather than forcing this exact wording.
Restricting keeps someone as a friend but limits them to seeing only what you post publicly — nothing shared with Friends only. No notification is sent.
Why this exists
Unfriending and blocking both signal something and both end the relationship entirely — which is often more than the situation calls for. Restrict was built for the much more common case: someone you cannot or do not want to formally cut off (a relative, a coworker, an ex you have mutual friends with) but do not want reading your day-to-day posts either.
What changes for them, precisely
- They remain on your friends list, visible to both of you as normal.
- They see only posts you set to Public. Anything audienced to Friends, Friends except, or a custom list is invisible to them, even though they are technically a friend.
- If you comment on a mutual friend's post, a restricted person can still see that comment, because it lives on the other person's post, governed by that person's settings, not yours.
- Their messages to you land in Message Requests rather than your primary inbox unless you already had an active conversation.
- Nothing about your relationship to *their* content changes — you still see their posts normally unless you separately unfollow or mute them.
Restrict vs. the alternatives
| | Sees your posts | Friendship | They notified | |---|---|---|---| | Restrict | Public only | Kept | No | | Unfollow | Unaffected — this hides *their* posts from *you* | Kept | No | | Mute | Unaffected | Kept | No | | Unfriend | Nothing (not a friend) | Ended | No | | Block | Nothing | Ended | No |
Restrict and unfollow solve opposite problems and are often used together: unfollow controls what *you* see of *them*; restrict controls what *they* see of *you*.
Undoing it
Same path, same button — it now reads Remove Restriction. Effective immediately, with no waiting period, unlike unblocking's 48-hour lock.
When restrict is not enough
If the person is a genuine safety concern rather than someone you would simply rather not share with, restrict is the wrong tool — it keeps them as a friend and keeps the door to contact open. Blocking or reporting is the appropriate response there.
Official source
Meta's Restricted list documentation covers current behaviour. Your own settings and friends list reflect the actual current state.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Does the person know I restricted them?
- No. There is no notification, no visible tag, and nothing on their side indicates it happened. They simply start seeing less of what you post.
- Can a restricted person still message me?
- Yes, but messages from a restricted person who is not already a friend in your inbox go to Message Requests rather than your main inbox, so you see it before it appears as a normal conversation.
- Can restricted people comment on my posts?
- They can comment on anything they can see, meaning your public posts. They cannot comment on posts limited to Friends, because they cannot see those posts at all.
- Is restricting the same as being on a limited friends list?
- Similar in effect but simpler to use. Restrict is a single one-click list built for exactly this; a custom friends list can do something comparable but requires manually assigning post audiences.