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[ANSWERED] Permanently Set Facebook Feed To Show Most Recent Instead Of Top Stories


Quick Note: There is an additional tip for getting to the Most Recent view of your Facebook feed on the mobile apps at the bottom of this post, courtesy of a reader. Be sure to check out that update. I also added an update about reports that Facebook has been limiting the number of posts being displayed in the Most Recent view. 

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Sometimes the big social networks roll out features (or forget to roll them out) that work for the majority of the users, but just don’t make sense to some of us.

For example, I’m still trying to figure out why Instagram doesn’t have a good way to upload photos from the desktop or why Twitter makes it so hard to switch to desktop view on an iPad or tablet.

Another strange one is the fact that Facebook loves to show you the “Top Stories” that it thinks are important in your life and while that works for some, there are those of us who prefer to see our feeds in chronological order.

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In the desktop view of Facebook, there is an option to change from Top Stories to Most Recent, but Facebook only maintains that setting for about 24 hours and then it automatically reverts back to Top Stories.

You can manually change your Facebook feed to display the most recent posts, but Facebook will change it back to Top Stories after about 24 hours.You can manually change your Facebook feed to display the most recent posts, but Facebook will change it back to Top Stories after about 24 hours.

Unfortunately, there isn’t any way to permanently change this setting in your profile, an option that I feel Facebook has mistakenly overlooked.

Facebook doesn't allow you to permanently set your feed to show Most Recent entries, but here's a workaround that can help. Click To Tweet

I’m sure that “Top Stories” probably garner Facebook more opportunities to learn about what is popular or what topics you are more likely to respond to…which can also lead to increased revenue for them.

It also gives them more control over your feed, as opposed to Most Recent, which simply dictates that the posts will be show in chronological order.

Unfortunately, a lot of us think of our Facebook feed as a chronological feed of events that are happening. We check-in multiple times each day, expecting that new things will have occurred since the last time we checked.

In other words, we expect our feed to be presented to us in chronological order.

The good news, is that there is an easy way to adjust Facebook so that it ALWAYS shows you the most recent.

The key is in the URL you use to access Facebook. Instead of using the standard http://Facebook.com URL to access the site, try clicking this link instead:

https://www.facebook.com/?sk=h_chr

With the ?sk parameter at the end of the URL, Facebook will now always display the most recent stories and will cause the banner to appear that indicates you’re viewing Most Recent.

To make this more “permanent”, just set a bookmark in your browser to that URL or add a shortcut on your desktop and then just click that link or bookmark when you want to access Facebook.

By doing that, Facebook will always start in a mode where the most recent stories are shown, instead of top stories.

Success! By using this URL, Facebook automatically switches your feed to Most Recent instead of Top Stories!Success! By using this URL, Facebook automatically switches your feed to Most Recent instead of Top Stories!

NOTE: I know, I know…it’s not the ideal solution that we want where Facebook adds a setting to our profiles and asks us whether we prefer to view our feed as Top Stories or Most Recent.

Unfortunately, we have little control over what features Facebook gives us as options. In the meantime, using a bookmark and accessing the desktop version of Facebook through that bookmark will always show you Most Recent if it has the ?sk=h_chr parameter assigned to the end of it.

Unfortunately, I still haven’t found a great way to switch the Android or iOS Facebook mobile apps over to Most Recent, but for those of you on Android, if you click the menu icon, you can always select “Most Recent” from your list of available feeds.

You can manually change the Android and iOS mobile apps to show the Most Recent feed, instead of the default Top StoriesYou can manually change the Android and iOS mobile apps to show the Most Recent feed, instead of the default Top Stories

In iOS on your iPhone or iPad, you can do the same thing by selecting the menu icon at the bottom of the app and choosing More > See More> Feeds > Most Recent.

I know…it’s a lot of steps, but it’s worth it if you really want to see your feeds in chronological order.

In the Facebook app for iOS, you can also view the most recent view of your Facebook feedIn the Facebook app for iOS, you can also view the most recent view of your Facebook feed

Hopefully that helps those of you who like to see the most recent posts from your friends and family!

If you another way or a better way to make this change permanent, definitely share them in the comments.

–Sean


Update 1 – Another workaround to getting to the most recent

One of my readers reached out through my contact form and sent an interesting note that there is a quicker way to get to the Most Recent view of your Facebook feed without having to navigate through the menus.

Hey Sean, Thanks for the tip on setting up a bookmark to show the most recent feed in the desktop view of Facebook. I thought I would return the favor with a tip that I use on the mobile app. To get to the Most Recent view on the mobile app, I just searched “Most Recent” in the search bar at the top of the app. If you do that, it auto-fills “most recent posts” and clicking that takes you to the Most Recent view of your timeline.

Here’s the best part, though. Once you do that, it saves “most recent posts” at the top of your recent searches. That means, you can simply click on the search bar and then click on the top item in your recent searches and it gets you there in two taps.

Hope that helps your readers, keep the tips coming.

–Wesley

…and sure enough, Wesley is correct. I opened my Facebook app on Android and typed “most recent” and the menu auto-populated the most recent posts option.

Searching the Facebook mobile app for Most Recent will get you to the most recent view of your Facebook feed quickly

Once I tapped on that most recent posts, it took me right to the Most Recent view of my timeline.

When I tapped on the search bar again, the first entry in my recent searches was “most recent posts”, which is PERFECT.

Saved search for most recent includes a shortcut to the most recent posts in the mobile app

I don’t actually do a lot of Facebook searches, so it’s nice to have it at the top of my recent searches. Even if it did drop down a couple spots, any time I tap on it, it would come right back to the top of my searches.

Thanks, Wesley! Hopefully this tip helps speed up the process of getting to the Most Recent view of your Facebook feed until Facebook actually listens to us and adds a setting to make it permanent.


Update 2 – Users Reporting Issues With The Most Recent View Of Facebook Feed Being Limited

A few folks in the comments and via email have been reporting that Facebook is tinkering around with the “Most Recent” view of the Facebook feed…and not in a good way. Specifically, Facebook has only been showing 5-10 articles and then forcing people to switch back over to the “Top Stories” view. 

A limited version of the Most Recent view would suck, because it’s our chronological view of posts. If they limit it to only 5-10 posts, then it makes it very difficult to go back and find a post that you saw and wanted to look at again. You can always search for the post, but the Facebook search feature is cumbersome.

The good news is they don’t seem to have rolled the changed out as a permanent “feature”. Last week, I experienced the limit on desktop but this week my desktop Most Review view continues to load article. I scrolled down until I had reviewed about 100 posts, so it doesn’t seem to be limited anymore. 

I never have experienced the scrolling limit on Most Recent in mobile. I’d be interested to hear if others have. 

Hopefully, it was just a glitch in a Facebook code update and they resolved it my removing the limit. If you’re still seeing it, let us know in a comment.


If you have a tip, be sure to share it and I’ll update the post!

Cheers!

–Sean


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Grant

Saturday 12th of February 2022

Thanks Sean. I have found that when using FB on my android phone, you can open a browser search for FB then log in with your details. It will of course take you to the "top stories" feed... but then if you select "most recent" from the FB hamburger menu (3x parallel lines) and THEN "Add to homescreen" from your browser's menu, that will (when you open FB from this desktop shortcut) you will always open to the most recent feed. Also if you use firefox, there's an add-on which will remove the sponsored ads, which is excellent! HOWEVER... there's one really big issue for me, with which I'm hoping you can help. I am a member of a number of marketplace groups that I'd like to stay in (because it's useful when I sometimes sell second-hand stuff) and I have unfollowed all these groups so I can post to them when I need, but I don't want to see the MANY ads from these groups in my newsfeed each day. But here's the problem - when I am in "top stories" mode - no ads. When I open FB from my "most recent" browser shortcut - so, so many ads from these groups I have unfollowed. It's infuriating. I have tried 3 different browsersI have contacted FB support multiple times, with (of course) no answer and no resolution or fix. Any chance you might have a way to get most recent and also no ads from the groups I have unfollowed? Appreciate your time. Cheers.

roadrunnr23

Friday 29th of January 2021

I like the bookmark idea. I’ve bookmarked a friend list to cut down on ads and show only my closest friends, but it switched to show only top stories a few months ago. Any idea how to change a friend list bookmark to show most recent instead of top stories?

Joe van petten

Wednesday 18th of November 2020

November 2020 and there does not appear to be a "most recent" option at all anymore. If you use facebook too much, yuou just see the same damn posts over and over. Way to limit my use of your page, facebook, because I can't get the latest stuff anymore, so I wander to twitter and reddit.

snicholson

Wednesday 18th of November 2020

Hi Joe,

The Most Recent option does still exist it's just hidden under the "See More" option in the left navigation. Just click See More to expand the menu and scroll down to "Most Recent". I hope that helps!

--Sean

Craig H Baker

Tuesday 29th of September 2020

They didn't overlook this feature. I imagine It is much less strenuous on their servers to show top stories.