Facebook Memories is a nice idea in theory: “Can you believe it’s been 5 years since you did this?” “Remember that time you went to this place?” “You’ve been friends with your sister for 14 years!” (got this one myself today. I’ve known her for… somewhat longer).
However, there is a dark side to the feature. Lost loved ones, long-passed pets, exes you never want to hear of again, friends you fell out with — I’ve heard story after heartbreaking story of sad reminders the algorithm ruined people’s days with.
What a lot of folks don’t know, though, is that you can change the settings on Memories or turn it off entirely.
Here’s how.
- Go to your Facebook Memories page in the app or via this link
- In the app, tap the cog in the top corner. On the website, go to the menu on the left.
You’re now in the Memories settings. From there, you can choose from Notifications, Hide People and Hide Dates.
Here’s Notifications, which you can use to stop Facebook telling you about Memories entirely if you want:
In Hide People, type in the names of whoever you’d rather not see in Memories (you don’t need to be Facebook friends with them):
And in Hide Dates, you can choose difficult times in your life, or just add a ridiculously early date like 1933 to break Memories entirely:
Hope this helps a bit — no one wants their day ruined by an algorithm.