Turn off Facebook email notifications in your account settings
Facebook sends notification emails by default when someone likes your post, comments on your photo, or tags you. You can turn these off entirely, or keep some and block others. The setting lives in one place: your Facebook notification preferences, which you reach through your account settings.
Log into Facebook on a computer or phone. Click the downward arrow in the top right corner, then select Settings and privacy, then Settings. On the left side, click Notifications. You will see a list of notification types — comments, friend requests, messages, and others. Next to each one, you will see where Facebook sends it: "Email" or "In-app only" or both.
Click on any notification type to change where it goes. If you see "Email" listed, click it to turn that channel off. The notification will still reach you inside Facebook itself, but you will stop receiving emails about it. If you want to block that notification entirely — no email and no in-app alert — you can do that too, though most people prefer to keep in-app notifications and just kill the email.
Key Takeaways
- Facebook notification emails come from a setting in your account, not from individual people or pages, so you control them all in one place.
- You can turn off email notifications while keeping alerts inside the Facebook app, so you still see what matters when you open it.
- The notification settings page lists each type of alert separately — comments, likes, tags, messages — so you can block some emails and keep others.
- If you have turned off notifications before and they started again, Facebook may have reset them during an update, so check the settings page every few months.
Find the notification settings page on mobile
On an iPhone or Android phone, the path is slightly different. Open the Facebook app, tap the three horizontal lines (the menu) in the bottom right corner. Scroll down and tap Settings and privacy, then Settings. Scroll to Notifications and tap it.
You will see categories like Email notifications at the top. Tap that section to see what types of emails Facebook is sending you. Each one has a toggle switch next to it. Turn off the ones you do not want. On mobile, the toggles are often easier to spot than on desktop, so this is sometimes the faster route if you are on your phone anyway.
Unsubscribe from individual notification emails
If you do not want to dig into settings right now, you can unsubscribe from individual emails as they arrive. Open a Facebook notification email in your inbox. Scroll to the very bottom. You will see a line that says something like Unsubscribe from these emails or Email preferences. Click it.
This takes you to a page where you can turn off that specific type of notification — say, all emails about comments — without touching your other settings. It is slower than doing it all at once in your account settings, but it works if you only want to stop a few types of emails and do not want to navigate the full preferences page.
Stop emails from a specific person or page
Sometimes you want to keep Facebook notification emails in general, but you do not want emails about activity from one particular person or page. You can mute them instead of blocking them. On Facebook, find the person or page. Click the three dots in the top right of their profile or page. Select Mute. Choose what you want to mute: their posts, their stories, or notifications about them.
Muting stops you from seeing their posts in your feed and stops notification emails about their activity, but they do not know you muted them. They can still message you, and you can still visit their profile. This is gentler than unfriending and solves the problem of one person sending you too many notification emails without the awkwardness of a full block.
Understand why Facebook keeps sending you emails
Facebook has financial incentive to send you emails — each one is a chance to pull you back into the app or website. Even if you turn off notifications, Facebook may turn some back on during a major update or when you change your password. Check your notification settings every few months, especially after Facebook announces a big change.
You may also notice that you receive emails about things you do not remember turning on — a "People You May Know" email, or a weekly digest of activity. These are separate from the notification settings and live in different places. Weekly digests are usually found under Notifications > Email notifications > Digests and summaries. Turn off any digest you do not want.
Block all Facebook emails at once
If you want to stop almost all Facebook emails, there is a faster route than turning off each notification type individually. In your notification settings, look for Email notifications at the top. Some versions of Facebook let you toggle off the entire category in one click. This stops all notification emails except for a few that Facebook considers essential — password resets, security alerts, and messages from people you know.
If your version does not have a master toggle, you can still turn off the biggest senders: comments, likes, tags, and friend requests. These four account for most notification emails. After you turn those off, check back in a month or two, because Facebook sometimes re-enables them.
What to do if you never signed up for these emails
If you are receiving Facebook notification emails but you do not remember turning them on, you are not alone. Facebook turns on email notifications by default when you create an account, and it keeps them on even if you have not logged in for months. The emails come from noreply@facebookmail.com or a similar address.
The fastest way to stop them is to unsubscribe from the bottom of any email, or to log into your account and turn off email notifications in settings. You do not need to delete your account or do anything drastic. If you have not used Facebook in years and do not plan to, you can also deactivate your account, which stops all emails from Facebook.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will turning off email notifications stop me from seeing activity inside the Facebook app?
No. Email notifications and in-app notifications are separate. You can turn off the emails and still get alerts inside Facebook when you open it. Most people do this — they keep the app notifications so they see what matters when they check Facebook, but they stop the emails from cluttering their inbox.
Can I turn off emails from Facebook but keep messages from my friends?
Yes. Messages are a separate setting from notifications. Go to Settings > Notifications > Messages and choose where you want message alerts to go. You can keep email alerts for direct messages while turning off all other notification emails.
Why do I keep getting Facebook emails even though I turned off notifications?
Facebook sometimes re-enables notifications during updates, or you may have multiple notification types turned on without realizing it. Check your settings again — look for weekly digests, security alerts, and "People You May Know" emails, which are often in separate sections. Also check your email spam folder to see if Facebook emails are being filtered there instead of appearing in your inbox.
What is the difference between muting someone and unfriending them?
Muting stops you from seeing their posts and stops notification emails about them, but you stay friends and they can still message you. Unfriending removes them from your friends list entirely. Muting is quieter — they will not know you did it — while unfriending may hurt feelings if they notice.
Can I turn off notifications for just one type of activity, like comments?
Yes. In your notification settings, each activity type — comments, likes, tags, friend requests — has its own toggle. You can turn off email notifications for comments but keep them for messages, or any other combination you want.