How To Change Facebook Email Notifications

As a social networking site, Facebook has a over 400 million active users, all of which could potentially be your friend.¹ With that many users and that much activity, it is a good idea to know how to change Facebook email notifications. By default Facebook will notify you by email every time something important happens on your Facebook account. This means that may receive emails each time someone adds you as a friend, invites you to join a group, leaves a post on your wall, tags you in a photo, or any number of other actions. Being able to control what notifications you receive allows you to customize your Facebook experience and stay as up to date as you like. Maybe you want to receive notification for every little detail or maybe you only want to receive emails for the really big stuff. Either way, you can change your Facebook email notification settings in a few minutes with just a couple clicks of the mouse.

Step 1: Where to Locate Your Facebook Notification Settings

Your Facebook notification settings can be accessed through your account settings. To change these settings you first need to login to your Facebook account. Once you are logged in click on the Account button at the top right-hand corner of the Facebook page. Choose Account Settings from the pull-down menu. This takes you to the center for all of your account settings. You can choose which account settings to edit by clicking on one of the numerous tabs available on the page. To change your email notifications you will want to click on the Notifications tab. All of your current notification settings are displayed here and you can begin changing them.²

How to Use Facebook Chat

Learning how to use chat on Facebook offers another way to communicate with friends and family members. This is a real time chat program that can connect users without additional downloads or other software. Each Facebook account is enabled with this feature and can utilize it to talk to other Facebook users.

Step 1: Log in to Facebook

• In order to use Facebook Chat, you will have to be logged into your Facebook account, so:

1. Go to www.facebook.com²
2. Enter your user name (or email address is that is what you use to log in) and password in the applicable boxes in the top right-hand corner

If you do not have a Facebook account yet, you can set one up by choosing the coordinating option when at the Facebook homepage. To sign up for an account, you will need to enter the following:³

1. Name
2. Email
3. Password
4. Birthday

Once you have established an account, you can then search for friends, classmates or family and request they add you as a friend. Once they approve your request, you will be able to chat with them via Facebook Chat.

Step 2: See Who's Online

• Once you're logged into Facebook, find out which of your friends are logged into Facebook and available to chat.

1. Locate the "Online Friends" tab in the bottom left-hand corner of your Facebook page
2. Click the "Online Friends" tab—this will bring up a list of all your friends that are logged into Facebook
3. You may notice that some of the names in the list have a green dot next to them, while others have a moon symbol on them. The green dot means that person is currently online and the moon symbol means that the person was online recently, but has been inactive for at least ten minutes

Step 3: Start a Conversation

• From your list of online friends, select one that you want to start chatting with. Note that those friends that have the moon icon next to their names are no longer active on the Facebook site. If you send them an instant message, they will receive it next time they log on to Facebook. Once you have decided which online friend you want to chat with:⁴

1. Click anywhere in the box that contains their name
2. This will bring up a new chat window; near the bottom of the chat window, you will see a blinking cursor
3. Simply type the message you want to send to your recipient and then hit enter to send the message
4. Your message will appear near the top of the window and any new messages will appear below it
5. Wait for your friend to reply to your message. If you want, you can minimize the chat window using the minus sign in the top right hand corner of the chat window—a chiming sound will alert you of any new instant messages. To reopen the chat window, simply click on the box that contains your friend's name
6. Repeat step #3 above to send any new messages
7. To close a chat window, click on the "X" in the top right hand corner of the chat window

How to Use Facebook Chat Without Going to the Facebook Website

Step 2: Facebook Notification Options

There are many different actions for which you can be notified by email. You can also be notified by text message on your cell phone. All of the notification options appear on this page. Your notifications are broken up into categories. The Facebook category contains all of your options for profile specific actions, such as a new friend request, a new wall post, etc. The Photos category includes such action as being tagged in a photo, receiving a new comment on your photo, etc. The Groups category includes notifications for new group invites, new group wall posts, and more. Under the Pages category you will see notification options for page suggestions, page updates, etc. You can also be notified for actions related to events, such as new event invitations, under the Events category. Other categories include Notes, Links, Video, Gifts, Help Center, Wall Comments, Other Updates from Facebook, and Other Applications.³

Step 3: Change Your Facebook Email Notifications

To change your Facebook email notifications you will need to go through each notification option and choose whether or not you want to receive an email. If you do want to receive an email notification, click the check box next to each option. Remove the check box mark if you do not want to receive notification. If you want to stay very up to date and do not mind receiving many emails, click many of the email notification options. If you don't like receiving many emails from Facebook a day, only check the options that are important to you. If you don't want to be updated at all you can choose to receive no email notifications whatsoever and simply keep up to date on Facebook by logging in. Once you have chosen what email notifications to receive, click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the page. Now you will begin receiving only the email notifications that you have chosen to receive.⁴

This video demonstrates the steps in changing the email notifications that you receive from Facebook. There are many different options for receiving email notifications and you have the power over which ones to receive. Simply choose the options that interest you in your account settings. You can also receive Facebook notifications by text message.