While surfing across profiles on Facebook, you might have seen quite a few profiles where the “Add Friend” button disappears. This brings a lot of questions to your mind as; why the “Add Friend” is not showing on a person’s profile? What does such missing out of the “Add Friend” button indicates? And most importantly, how to send a friend request on Facebook when there is no option available?
In this article, you will get answers to all these questions and learn everything about reasons behind the “Add Friend” button not showing/missing issue on Facebook and how to fix it.
“Add Friend” missing on Facebook: What it indicates?
Facebook users have been granted with authorization to control their privacy settings, which includes who can see the activity, and/or who can find/contact them to get connected. Moreover, they are also provided with an option to change friend request settings under the privacy settings to disable “strangers” from sending friend request.
In case the “Add Friend” button is missing from someone’s profile on Facebook it clearly indicates that the user has restricted their privacy settings. On the other hand it could also mean that they might have denied your friend request, or marked it as spam. It could also be interpreted that the hidden or grayed out “Add Friend” is to stop spammers from abusing the button.
Why the “Add Friend” is not showing on Facebook?
There are different reasons behind the “Add Friend” is not showing, these are discussed below in detail:
1. The user restricted their privacy settings
The first and foremost reason of the “Add Friend” button not showing on Facebook is due to the fact that user has restricted the privacy settings. As per Facebook’s privacy settings, users can confine who all can send them friend requests. Users can opt for either -”Everyone” or “Friends of friends” to be set upon, though, by default, “Everyone” is enabled on your profile.
Everyone allows any user who has Facebook account to send you a friend request, and conversely “Friends of friends” option let only mutual friends to add you as a friend. Thus by switching from “Everyone” to “Friends of friends” users can limit who can send friend request to you. You can take the following path/route to change and restrict who can send you friend requests on Facebook:
Navigate to the menu > settings & privacy > settings > privacy settings > who can send you friend requests > everyone/friends of friends.
Therefore, if a user has changed the privacy setting to “Friends of friends”, you will not get to see the “Add Friend” button on their profile if you are not friends with any of the person’s friends on Facebook.
2. Your friend request is denied
The second reason on the list be the fact that user has denied your friend request. So when you have sent a friend request to someone on Facebook and the person goes on to deny it, you won’t be able to see the “Add Friend” furthermore in such case.
Though Facebook never notifies you in event where someone denies your friend request, you can came to know that your friend request is denied by the person if:
- The “Add Friend” button becomes grayed out and unclickable.
- The “Add Friend” button disappears from their profile.
- “Friend request sent” option is replaced with “Add Friend”.
Once your friend request is turned down by someone, you can’t be able to add them instantly and must wait till the expiry of a “cool down” period, which is meant for safeguarding your account from spammers.
You will see that the “Friend request sent” gets changed to “Add Friend” after few days or week. And once it happens, you will be able to add them as friends back again. If the person denies your request for the second time as well, then you may have an extended “cool down” period.
3. Your friend request is marked as spam
Facebook users are provided with the ability to mark friend requests as spam. And, if a person marks your friend request as spam, you will not find the “Add Friend” on their profile. As per custom on Facebook, once you receive any friend request, it can either be accepted using confirm or rejected by delete option. In addition to that you can mark it as spam after deleting the request.
Once someone marked your friend request as spam, you will not be able to send a friend request on Facebook for long.
Note: The option is irrevocable, and once the friend request is marked as spam, there is no possibility to revert it. And the only way out is to contact Facebook support.
Fixing the “Add Friend” Button on Facebook
The “Add Friend” button not showing up on any Facebook user’s, does not mean that there exist some bug or a glitch. This issue occurs due to the reasons discussed above. When it comes to solving this problem, the only physical action to fix it is Add mutual friends.
Thus if you want to send a friend request when the “Add Friend” button is not available on Facebook, you can try the couple of proven ways mentioned below.
How to send a Friend request on Facebook when there is no option:
When you don’t have any direct option to add someone as friend on Facebook, as the “Add Friend” button disappears from their profile and you still want to send them a friend request; you can either try adding one of your friend’s friends on Facebook or wait it out.
Here’s a detailed explanation of these fix:
Fix #1. Add mutual friends
The first and only manual method to fix the “Add Friend” button issue on Facebook is to add mutual friends. By means of adding one of the person’s friends on Facebook there is an out-and-out chance for you to be able to send a Friend request on Facebook when there is no option.
For this reason, you require to get one of the person’s friends to accept your friend request on Facebook. The moment any of the user from the person’s friends list accepts you as a friend, you will get to see the “Add Friend” button on the person’s profile. Now you can send them a friend request.
However, this is only going to help you if the person has changed their “Who can send you friend requests” setting to “Friends of friends”. Or else, the “Add Friend” button will continue to be out of sight from their profile, and thus you will be in no position to send a friend request to them.
Fix #2. Wait it out
In case someone deletes or denies your friend request, you will have to wait for a few days or weeks before you get the option back to add them as friend. This happens due to the concept of a “cool down” period (as discussed above).
Thus when you send a request to add someone as a friend and later on realized that the “Add Friend” button has disappeared or is greyed out on their profile, the only thing you can do in this situation is to wait till the expiry of “cool down” period and let the button to show up again.
In the same way, where someone has deleted your friend request and/or marked it as spam, you are required to wait for the “Add Friend” button to work again.
Conclusion
That is all. You can now successfully address the issue of the “Add Friend” button missing/not showing on Facebook. Additionally you have learnt about how to restore The “Add Friend” button, and send a Friend request on Facebook when there is no option by using the couple of fix mentioned above.
Hope you find this blog post helpful. For more of such articles do follow TheTechMirror.
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