Friendly Way to Trim Your Friend List on Facebook

Trim large Facebook friend lists to keep them manageable.

Facebook is a social networking site and its user interface was designed to help members establish and grow their network of friends. Facebook developed proprietary software that analyzes information about the people on an established friend list and then suggests new friends, based upon that information, that can be requested with the click of a button. Combined with other random friend requests, Facebook friend lists can grow larger than desired with little effort. But you can trim down your friend list to a more manageable size using a personal and friendly message.

Instructions

1. Log in to Facebook and select "Manage Friend List" from the profile page.

2. Remove any names from the friend list that are not personal acquaintances. Examples might include celebrities, political candidates, musicians and athletes.

3. Compose a friendly message to known acquaintances that you want to remove and send it to people on the friend list prior to deleting them from the list.

   This message might be similar to the following:

   "Hi. It looks like my Facebook Friend List has become quite large and unmanageable. It appears that many of these names are associated with accounts that are not currently being used. I've decided to trim the list to include only the people I correspond with the most and those who have active Facebook accounts. I might accidentally remove some good friends from the list, so please let me know if I've inadvertently severed our Facebook friendship."

   This method will give those who really care a chance to request friendship again, at which time you can decide whether to reconsider.