How to Regain Control of Your Facebook Feed

If your Facebook feed feels more like an advertising billboard than a place to catch up with friends, it isn't a glitch. It's Facebook's business model at work. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, reported ad revenue of just under $60 billion for the second quarter of 2026, and Facebook was a major contributor. 

Facebook's Home feed is a mixture of friends, groups, Pages, recommended videos and ads, all selected by an algorithm that monitors what you click, watch and interact with. You can't eliminate ads entirely, but you have more control over what you see than you may realize. 

Keep in mind that Facebook constantly changes (or hides) settings in both its mobile and desktop interfaces, so the exact steps that work today may require a little more digging in the future. 

Skip the Home Feed  
The easiest way to see more of your friends is to stop using the Home feed altogether. Instead, use the Feeds tab. Unlike the main feed, Feeds displays recent posts chronologically from friends, Pages, Groups and ads, but without ‘Suggested for you’ posts.  
 
You can also choose to see posts exclusively from your Favorites, Friends, Groups or Pages via the Feeds menu. 

Finding Feeds depends on your device: 

• In the mobile app: Look for Feeds in the Menu (the three lines in the upper left corner).  

• On a desktop browser: Look for Feeds in the left-hand sidebar menu. For faster access on a computer, once you’re in Feeds, create a bookmark by pressing Ctrl+D (Windows) or Cmd+D (MacOS). 

Customize Your App Tabs To avoid digging through menus every time you open the mobile app, pin Feeds directly to your main navigation bar for 1-tap access (there is no option for this on the desktop interface). 

Go to Settings > Tab bar > Customize the bar (or Navigation bar in some cases). Under "Available tabs," find Feeds and change its setting from Auto to Pin, which creates a permanent shortcut icon at the bottom of the app screen. 

Put Your Favorite People First To prioritize specific friends and Pages, add them to your Favorites: 

• In the mobile app: Go to Settings > Content preferences > Favorites. 

• On a desktop browser: Click your profile icon in the top-right corner, select Settings & privacy > Feed, then click Favorites. 

Their updates will receive priority in your Home feed, and you can use the Favorites filter inside the Feeds tab to view only their recent posts. 

Final Thoughts  
You can't turn back the clock to the early days of social media, but you don't have to let the algorithm make every decision. Start with the Feeds tab and build a Favorites list to regain control over what you see. 

If you haven't seen anything from a friend in a while, either add them to your Favorites list or visit their profile and Like or Comment on a couple of their posts to nudge the algorithm. 

Also, if you go searching for help, beware of scam posts or phone numbers that claim to be Facebook support.  Facebook will never offer a support phone number for 3 billion users; its official support is located at https://www.facebook.com/help.