How do I block all Facebook Chats?

Facebook messages are a private form of communication on the social networking site. By default, anyone who has a Facebook profile is allowed to send you a message, even if he's not on your friend list. If you receive too many unwanted messages from non-friends, change your privacy settings so that only your confirmed friends are allowed to send a message. As of August 2011, Facebook doesn't allow you to stop your friends from initiating a new message conversation.

1. Click on the "Account" link in the top right corner of your Facebook screen. Click "Privacy Preferences" from the menu.

2. Look under the "Connecting on Facebook" section of the privacy settings screen. Click on the blue "View Settings" link.

3. Click on the light gray icon in the "Send you messages" group. Click "Friends Only" from the drop-down menu. Only people on your confirmed friends list will be allowed to send you messages. If you want to stop someone who's currently on your friend list from messaging you, the only way to stop her is by un-friending her.

Messaging is a core part of social media, whether you’re chatting with Facebook friends or responding to comments on your latest Instagram story. Facebook Messenger is one of the main ways some friends keep in touch.

But the Message button on your profile is also an easy way for strangers to contact you. If you don’t like it that, some new privacy settings make it easy to control who messages you on Facebook and Instagram, and how those messages show up.

First, here’s a little background. (Or jump straight to the instructions, if you prefer.)

People you’re friends with on Facebook or people you follow on Instagram can get in touch anytime. When they do, their messages show up in your chats list and you’ll get a notification, unless you’ve changed your settings. The other person can see whether or not you’ve opened their messages.

By default, messages from just about everyone else get sent to a “requests” folder.

Requests are different because you can read the message and the other person won’t know you've seen it unless you hit “accept.” That gives you a little preview before you decide to open up a dialog.

You won’t get notifications about message requests. In fact, you may have a backlog of requests you didn’t even know about.

To check for requests on the Facebook Messenger app, tap your profile in the top left and select “Message Requests.” On the Facebook website, find a link to the folder by clicking the three-dot menu icon in the top of the chat window. Instagram message requests show up as a tab in the chat window.

The latest privacy setting updates break potential connections into a few categories, such as friends of friends or people you’re connected to on Facebook but not Instagram. You can choose how these different categories of people contact you.

First, you can open the floodgates and have all the messages show up as regular chats. Or you can continue having the messages sent to the requests folder. If you’d rather be unreachable, you can also chose not to receive requests all.

For people you have no connection to, the only option is to use the requests folder or to decline to be contacted at all.

The settings show up in different places depending on which app you’re using.

On Facebook: Open the chat window in the top right corner > Click the three-dot menu icon near the top > Message delivery settings > Under “How You Get Message Requests,” select the various potential connections and choose how you want to be contacted.

(Those instructions are for the Facebook website. The steps are similar in the app.)

On the Facebook Messenger App: Tap your profile photo in the top left > Privacy > Message Delivery > Choose how you want to be contacted.

On Instagram: Go to your profile by tapping the icon in the bottom right > Tap the menu icon with three stacked lines in the top right > Hit the settings button at the bottom > Privacy > Messages > Choose how you want to be contacted.

Of course, you might also want to stop hearing from people you are connected with on Facebook or Instagram. It’s easy to put a lid on messages you’re tired of by muting notifications for a certain chat. You can also ignore or block someone.

People you mute will still be able to send you messages; you just won’t get notifications. Choose ignore, and their messages will get sent to a spam folder. If you block someone, they won’t be able to contact you at all. You can choose to block just their messages, or you can block their entire account, which cuts off all contact and unfriends them.

On Instagram the options are different. You can block someone’s account or “restrict” them, which hides their comments on your posts from other users and sends their messages to your requests folder.

No matter which method you choose, the other person won’t be notified.

On Facebook: Open a chat with the person > Click their name in the top left > Choose “Mute conversation,” “Ignore messages,” or “Block.”

(Those instructions are for a web browser. You can also block someone by going to their page in the app.)

On Facebook Messenger: Open a chat with the person > Click the “i” icon in the top right > Choose “Mute,” “Ignore Messages,” or “Block.”

On Instagram: Navigate to the person’s profile > Click the three-dot icon in the top right > Choose “Restrict” or “Block.”

Thomas Germain

I want to live in a world where consumers take advantage of technology, not the other way around. Access to reliable information is the way to make that happen, and that's why I spend my time chasing it down. When I'm off the clock, you can find me working my way through an ever-growing list of podcasts. Got a tip? Drop me an email ( ) or follow me on Twitter ( @ThomasGermain) for my contact info on Signal.

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