How to turn off Facebook Live notifications

Good news, everyone! Facebook has made it easier than ever to broadcast what you're doing, live. Bad news, everyone! Facebook has made it easier than ever to broadcast what you're doing, live. And the thing about live video is that it's pointless if nobody's watching. So Facebook makes sure that you get a notification every damn time one of your friends (or a page that you follow) goes live.

Sometimes that's great! Especially when it's the Android Central Facebook page that's doing the streaming, right?

Other times, it's downright awful. Holidays such as the Fourth of July here in the U.S. are one of those times. We've all seen fireworks before. Many of us will be out watching them, live. (Like, in-person.) So the last thing we need is 200 notifications of other people broadcasting their own fireworks experiences over relatively low resolution.

Facebook Live notifications settings

(Note that this only works from the full Facebook site, not m.facebook.com (which your phone will try to send you to), or from within the Facebook app.)

Here's how to to turn off Facebook Live notifications:

  1. Go to your Facebook settings. Drill down to Settings>Notifications>On Facebook.
  2. Now choose "Edit." (Note: This link should take you directly.)
  3. Toggle "Live Videos" to OFF.

Note that this only works from the full Facebook site, not m.facebook.com (which your phone will try to send you to), or from within the Facebook app.

Alternatively, if you just want to kill Facebook Live notifications from a single person or page, you can do so from within the notifications themselves. Just long-press on the person you want to squelch, and then choose whether to dismiss that single notification, or to turn off all notifications of live videos from that person.

Unless you absolutely hate any use of Facebook Live, we might suggest not turning off these notifications permanently. While they might get annoying when you've got groups of friends all showing the same thing (and the same thing that you yourself might be doing), you might well miss something interesting other times.

Phil Nickinson