What Does "Add to List" Mean on Facebook?

Friends can always be removed from a list.

Lists are small groups of your friends on Facebook. Adding one of your friends to a list is a private action on the social networking site; only you are able to see the lists you create and the privacy settings assigned to each. Friends are never notified when they are added to or removed from one of your lists.

Lists

Creating lists in your Facebook account creates subcategories within your regular friend list, which holds all of your friendship connections. Friends are never added to a list automatically -- you must always manually create and add friends to a list one by one. Facebook allows you to create multiple friend lists and each friend may be included on more than one list.

Process

Add friends to a list by clicking the "Account" link in the top right corner of your Facebook screen and choosing "Edit Friends." Click the "Create a List" icon to make a brand new list or click on the name of an existing list in the left column of the screen. When you are making a new list, click on the name and thumbnail of friends that you want to add and then the "Create List" button. On an existing list, click the "+" next to a friend in the "Suggested For This List" column or click "Add Multiple" to find and add friends.

Privacy

Adding a friend to a particular list gives you more control over what they see on your profile. Rather than having to give all of your friends access to a particular feature of your profile, such as one of your photo albums, you are able to exclude certain lists from seeing the feature. Likewise, you are allowed to make a feature only visible to a list and exclude everyone else.

News Feed

After you create at least one list, your news feed can be filtered to only reflect results from friends in that list. Click on the "Most Recent" link at the top of the homepage news feed and then the name of your list. Only the newest activities from friends added to that list will appear in the news feed. Click the name of your list above the feed and then "Most Recent" to return to the regular view.

References

• Facebook Help Center: What Are Friend Lists, and How Do I Create Them?