If you’re on Facebook then you are well aware of this problem. Remember how we used to be able to check pending friend requests in our friends list as indicated below?

Not anymore with the new personal profile.

If you think there may be a hidden feature for this then sorry to disappoint you again. Here’s how Facebook responded about tracking pending friend requests:

Unable to check pending friend requests is a huge disadvantage for Facebook users, especially if you are warned for overusing the feature (sent too many requests in a short period of time), reducing the request quantity may be the way to go. Currently the only known way to track pending friend requests is by visiting the person’s profile with a ‘Friend Request Sent’ icon at the upper right corner:

Imagine we have to memorize ALL friend requests we ever sent then return to each profile, EVERYTIME? Obviously this isn’t effective enough. Now wouldn’t it be great if there’s a list for that… that’s right, a LIST!

Recently, I was inspired by how useful a Facebook list can get, including tracking our liked pages in News Feed. So I thought why not utilize Facebook lists to track our pending friend requests as well? Of course there may be plugins or apps for the same purpose but if you are skeptical towards third party apps, Facebook Lists is a much safer method to use. Here’s how:

Step 1: Build Your ‘Pending Friend Requests’ List

1. After logged in your personal profile, go to this link: https://www.facebook.com/bookmarks/lists

2. Click ‘Create a List’ and name it ‘Pending Friend Requests’.

3. You won’t need to add anybody to the list yet but whenever you sent a friend request, be sure to add him/her to your ‘Pending Friend Requests’ list.

4. From Home -> ‘Pending Friend Requests’, you can see profiles that had been added to your list. In order to follow up the list regularly, add it to your ‘Favorites’.

Step 2: Manage Your ‘Pending Friend Requests’ List

Unlike any Facebook applications, you need to update this list manually whenever a friend request is accepted. You can easily aware who just accepted your friend requests via Facebook Notifications or email alerts. After that, remove your new friend from the ‘Pending Friend Requests’ list.

Now, what if you missed the notifications and forgot all about the list after sometimes? Fear not, there are ways you can modify the list after several accepted friend requests.

Bear in mind, the news feed of your custom list will be consisting of updates from both your new (accepted) friends and non-friends (their public stories). Therefore you need to make sure the correct profile been removed from your ‘pending friend requests’ list, but how do you determine that?

Method #1 – Update ‘Pending Friend Requests’ List in News Feed

a. Open your ‘Pending Friend Requests’ list and scroll through your news feed. Hover over the profile to reveal his connection with you: If he/she had accepted your friend request, the ‘Friend’ button will appear. Remove everyone who established the ‘Friend’ connection with you, leaving the actual pending requests remained.

Method #2 – Check if Someone Had Accepted Your Friend Request

Instead of visiting the person’s facebook profile, you can check this within your custom list:

a. In your ‘Pending Friend Requests’ list -> ‘See All’ (upper right corner) to load the popup menu.

b. From ‘On This List’ you can have an overview of the people you sent friend requests to on Facebook. The unanswered/unaccepted friend requests will not appear in your ‘Friends’ list. For example, if Ron had yet to accept my friend request, his name won’t appear in my ‘Friends’ list. That’s how you know if a particular friend request is still pending or accepted.

These methods can only assist you this far in monitoring current and future sent requests but not previous ones. If anybody knows how to track back old (unlisted) friend requests, be sure to drop me a message!

Now Is Your Turn…

How do you manage pending friend requests before this? Do you think it’s necessary to have a checklist for it on Facebook? Kindly share your thoughts.

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