How to Track (Manage) Your Pending Friend Requests on Facebook
Posted by Wong Ching Ya | Posted in Facebook, Social Media Tool, Social Networking, Tracking, Web Application |
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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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I was just looking at a Facebook friend’s page, and when I clicked on my friend’s friend list, I could see “Friend Request Sent” next to a couple people. If you check out the friend lists of a few close friends you could possibly use that as another quickie way to track some of your outstanding requests.
Thanks so much for pointing that out, Bear. I’m not aware of this info, will check on that.
Really appreciate your visit and comment.
Thank you for sharing this information. I am not well informed regarding this feature. Thank you and I will check this out.
Hi Ching Ya,
I especially needed this one since I had family members asking me why I hadn’t approved theirs friend requests ~ LOL!
Honestly since Facebook made all of those changes I’ve been pretty lost in there.
Tweeted, +1d, liked and will share now on Facebook
All the best,
Eren
I know what you mean, Eren.
I know how challenging it is to trying to keep up with all the requests… been there. Glad could share the info. Thank you so much for sharing this, really appreciate it.
Those are some great tips. I haven’t started using the lists on facebook but I use them all the time on twitter. You’ve developed a great way to track sent friends requests.
Thanks for the useful post. I’ll take action on that… Good to c u in the SME Clubs too
so i followed all of ur steps. but how do i figure out whos denied me and if they do will they still be on the list??
Sieana, that’s the one-thing lacking from this manual customized facebook lists – you need to update it personally by checking if the person had accepted your friend request or not after some times. The name won’t be removed from your list unless you do so. Unfortunately, there is no way to find out if the person had denied you, same thing if they wish to ignore your request. This is how facebook designs it so we won’t be notified with this info. Therefore, it’s always advisable to give your friend request a time frame and remove the pending ones if they are piling up for longer than a few weeks/months.