How To Unblock Someone On Facebook

Social media platforms allow millions of people to interact with one another everyday. Sometimes, those interactions are less than pleasant. Emotions can run high and to protect one’s peace, the blocking function is often used. This function serves to quickly silence another person’s presence or simply stop someone from seeing updates.

However, sometimes we need to unblock another user. If you’ve blocked someone accidentally, or you’ve forgiven them for their offenses, this article is for you.

How to Unblock Someone on Facebook

Fortunately, Facebook gives us several ways to unblock another user. We’ll review each in detail.

Unblocking on Facebook’s Desktop Site

To start, let’s go to the Facebook website. You will need to log into your account. To unblock someone on a desktop, follow these steps:

1. Click on the arrow icon in the upper right-hand corner.
   
2. Click on ‘Settings & Privacy.’
   
3. Click on ‘Settings.’
   
4. Click on ‘Blocking’ in the right-hand menu.
   
5. Click ‘Unblock’ next to the name of the individual you’d like to communicate with.

As soon as you’ve confirmed that you’d like to unblock the user, you can view their profile, send them a friend request, or even send them a message.

How to Unblock Someone on the Facebook App

Fortunately, you don’t need a computer handy to unblock someone. If you’re using the app, follow these instructions:

1. Open the Facebook App and log in.
2. Tap on the three horizontal lines. On an iPhone, these are in the lower right-hand corner. On an Android, they will be in the upper right-hand corner.
   
3. Tap on ‘Settings & Privacy.’
   
4. Tap on ‘Settings’ in the dropdown.
   
5. Scroll down and tap on ‘Blocking.’
   
6. Tap ‘Unblock’ next to the name of the person you’d like to unblock.
   

Now, you can see your friend’s profile and they can see yours too!

Of course, since you’re reading this article, you’ve come here to learn how to use this block feature to unblock someone. Let’s take a quick visit to the Facebook privacy center. Start by heading to Facebook’s home page and tapping on the small upside-down triangle in the right-hand corner. This will load a drop-down menu displaying a bunch of options, but we’ll want to view your account settings. Tap “Settings” to continue.

Inside your settings menu, you’ll find a bunch of different options on the left column of the display. Here’s where you’ll find all the privacy options for your account, but you’ll want to click on “Blocking” to manage the accounts you’ve blocked previously. This will load a page filled with a bunch of explanations of restricted lists, as well as a full list of your blocked users. You can use this list to unblock any user by tapping “Unblock” next to their name. This will prompt a warning explaining what happens if you unblock an account, which includes:

• The unblocked user being able to see your timeline (if it’s public) or contact you.
• Previous tags may be restored (these tags can be removed from your activity log).
• You won’t be able to reblock the user for 48 hours from the time of the initial unblocking.

All of this functions as a warning: proceed with caution when unblocking a user. You might not be happy with the results if that user is especially vindictive or toxic, and you won’t be able to block them again for 48 hours.

Once you’ve made up your mind, confirm this message by hitting “Unblock” on your phone or tablet. That user will be officially unblocked from your account, and will once again be able to see your name appear in Facebook results and any comments you may leave on the posts of mutual friends.

What Happens When You Block a Contact?

One frequent question we’re asked: what happens when you actually do block someone on Facebook? Some users have blocked friends and family members without truly understanding what’s been done by blocking them from the account. So let’s have a quick explanation of what blocking does on Facebook. Blocking’s not an overly complicated decision to make, but it’s good to know what happens once one of your contacts has been blocked.

As soon as you block that user, they lose the ability to see your entire account. This means your posts, your photos, your  tags, and even your account within search results. Effectively, you will have removed the privilege of that user being able to see your name on Facebook.

Everything you post, say, share, or do will be entirely blocked from that user. If you’ve previously been tagged in their posts, your name will still be mentioned, but the link to your account will be removed from the tag (effectively creating a blank tag that just reads your name). This might create strange circumstances for the blocked user. For example, if you comment on a mutual friend’s status or shared post, and that friend responds to you, the blocked user won’t be able to see your post that gives the replies context. This is probably the biggest indicator that a user’s been blocked.

Facebook will not notify the user that they’ve been blocked, and unlike social competitors like Twitter, when you load the page of someone who has blocked you, Facebook won’t display a “You’ve been blocked” message.

Instead, Facebook will load a generic error message letting the user know that the link they’re trying to access is either unavailable or broken.

Other Options for Dealing with Users on Facebook

Hiding and unfollowing users is a less-confrontational way to deal with people who simply use the platform in a way you don’t agree with. Let’s take a look.

Search for the person you want to unfollow and go to their profile page. At the top of their profile, you’ll find a few different options for their account, including an option that reads “Following.” Drop-down that menu and view the assorted options there.

You’ll see three different options, two of which relate to following the user’s account, and a third that reads “Unfollow.” This will stop that user’s posts from appearing in your feed at any time, while still maintaining your online friendship with them. They can still see your posts, like and comment, and you can still view their posts by loading their direct profile or following a link.

Hiding posts is also an option, similar to unfollowing a user from their profile. From your news feed, find the post you want to hide and click the drop-down triangle on their post. You’ll see a couple of different options.

The first is to hide that post, thus removing the post from your own newsfeed. The second option is to unfollow the user, exactly as we outlined above but without the extra step of loading up their individual profile. Finally, you can also report posts if you find them breaking some form of Facebook’s guidelines, which you can view here.

One last option: if one of your Facebook friends—say, a relative or a friend’s mother—is commenting on too many of your posts or photos, or you want to hide optional posts from them in order to prevent embarrassment or any other kind of reaction, we have the perfect solution for you.

Instead of removing or blocking them from your Facebook feed, the next time you go to post something on your Facebook account, simply drop down the “Viewing” options on your post and click on the “Friends, except…” or “Custom” option. You’ll gain the ability to hide your posts from specific users by entering their name into an easily accessible search box.

You can add or remove these users at any time, and you can even customize posts later on in the future. It’s a great, underused ability that makes it easy to control the audience seeing your content.

Frequently Asked Questions

Facebook can be a strange and mysterious place. If you still have questions, we have included some more answers here!

If I block someone on Facebook, can I still message them on Facebook Messenger?

Actually, yes. Contrary to popular belief, you can block and unblock someone in Facebook Messenger. Following the same steps as above, you can add names to the blocked list for Facebook Messenger. You can also unblock someone using this same menu.

If I unblock someone, will they know?

Although there are no notifications or alerts that you’ve unblocked them, it’s easy to find out. All the other user needs to do is look up your profile. When you’ve blocked someone, it will appear to them that you’ve completely deleted your profile.

If you unblock them they will be able to see, and interact with, your profile again.