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Chapter 4. Finding and Adding Friends > Organizing Your Friends
4.6. Organizing Your Friends
The options Facebook gives you for viewing your friends are great if you have only a handful of pals. But if you’re a hardcore social butterfly with dozens or even hundreds of friends, you’ll want to organize them into separate lists that reflect how you categorize them in your mind.
For example, imagine that in addition to your workplace network, you’re involved in a book club, a softball league, and a 12-step program. Creating a separate list for each group of people lets you keep track of your different social circles at a glance. And because Facebook lets you send the same message to all the friends on a single list all at once (see Section 4.6.2), control how much news about the list you want to see on your News Feed (Chapter 6), and even invite everyone on the list to join the same Group (Chapter 7) or Event (Chapter 8), creating separate Friend Lists helps you communicate with folks quickly and reduces the risk of having your worlds collide.
Note:
Friend Lists are for your eyes only—your friends never see which lists, if any, you’ve added them to.
4.6.1. Creating a Friend List
Facebook lets you create up to 100 different Friend Lists, each of which can contain up to 1,000 names. (Of course, unless you’re a politician, you probably won’t need anywhere near that many.) Here’s how to create one:
At the top right of any Facebook page, click the Account link, and then click Edit Friends.
Add some friends to your list. The easiest way is to click the thumbnail pictures of the people you want to add to your list. (Clicking a thumbnail once turns it blue to let you know you’ve selected it; clicking again deselects it.) Alternatively, you can click the “Start Typing a Name” field and type in names one at a time.
When you finish, click the Create List button. Your newly created list appears on the Friends page (click Account, then Edit Friends to get there) beneath the Lists heading. It also appears on your Home page (Section 1.1) when you click the Friends link on the left-hand side of the screen. When you view thumbnail pictures of any of the friends you’ve added to the list, the list’s name appears next to those people’s names.
Tip:
You can add the same person to multiple Friend Lists.
4.6.2. Viewing a Friend List
To see all the people on a particular Friend List:
If you want to see what everyone on a particular Friend List has been up to lately, head to your Home page by clicking the word “facebook” or “Home” at the top of any screen. On the left side of the screen, click the Friends link, and then click the name of the list you want to see. (If you have a lot of Friend Lists, you may need to click the More link to see them all.) Facebook shows you those friends’ recent activities.
4.6.3. Editing a Friend List
Online or off, social circles and friendships change over time. After you’ve created a Friend List (Section 4.6), you can change its name, add people to it, or delete folks from it.
To rename a list:
Go to the left side of your Home page and click the Friends link. Facebook displays all your Friend Lists below the Friends link.
Click the name of the list you want to change.
On the page that appears, click the Edit List button.
In the dialog box that pops up, click the Edit link and then make your changes. When you finish, click the Save List button.
Note:
Alternatively, you can change the name of a Friend List by clicking the Account link at the top of any Facebook screen and then clicking Edit Friends. On the left side of the page that appears, click the name of the list you want to rename and then, at the top of the screen, click the Edit Name link and then follow step 4 above.
To add friends to an existing list:
At the top left of any Facebook page, click the Account link and then click Edit Friends.
On the left side of the screen that appears, click the name of the list you want to add friends to.
Type someone’s name into the “Type a friend’s name to add” field (Facebook pops up a helpful list after you begin typing). Alternatively, if you spot your friend’s name in the Suggested For This List section on the right side of the list page, click the plus sign that appears next to that friend’s name.
Tip:
To add a handful of friends to an existing list quickly, click the Add Multiple button that appears on the list page. In the dialog box that appears, scroll to browse through all your pals, clicking each Facebook friend you want to add to your list. When you finish, click Save List.
To delete friends from a list, follow the steps for adding a friend to an existing list; but in step 3, instead of typing a new name, mouse over the name of one of the folks already listed and then click the Edit Lists button that appears. Finally, on the drop-down list that appears, click the name of the list you want to delete the friend from (it has a checkmark next to it). Facebook removes the person from that list and deletes the checkmark.
Tip:
To delete a slew of friends from a list quickly: At the top left of any Facebook page, click the Account link and then click Edit Friends. On the left side of your Friends page, click the name of the list you want to thin. On the list page that appears, click the Add Multiple button. Then, in the dialog box that appears, scroll down to browse through all your pals, clicking each blue, checkmarked Facebook friend you want to delete from your list (the checkmark disappears after you click it to let you know that friend is off the list). When you finish, click the Save List button.
4.6.4. Deleting a Friend List
Maybe you created a Friend List and find you never use it. Or maybe the number of friends on one of your Friend Lists has dwindled to nothing. Whatever your reason, deleting a Friend List is easy:
View the list you want to delete (Section 4.6.1).
