Get to the very heart of what the modern smartphone is for, appearing birthday alerts on your iPhone. Part personal assistant, Facebook birthday alerts on iPhone are meant to notify you about friends and family you might want to plan something special ahead of schedule. They also mean a kind of “look at these people from here”. – A way for Facebook to drive traffic by reminding you of someone you may have forgotten. Facebook birthday alerts are helpful, but they’re also ridiculously annoying—especially for those who have tons of friends. You can be anywhere and suddenly have your device give alert after alert.
Here’s how to turn off Facebook birthday alerts on iPhone so you can focus on what you need.
Lets start. For the purposes of this tutorial, we are using iPhone 5s and Apple’s iOS 7 operating system for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. We are also using the latest version of Facebook for iOS. Depending on which iPhone you have, things may look a little different because iOS 7 is a big difference from older versions of iOS. If you own an iPhone 5, iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c, iPhone 5s, iPhone 4, and iPhone 4s, what you see on your device will match what’s shown here. If the Facebook app on your iPhone looks different than the one shown here, that’s fine. To manually update to the latest version of Facebook for iPhone, go to the iTunes App Store on your device.
Unlock your iPhone by entering your four-digit pin code or swiping from left to right at the bottom of your screen. iPhone 5s users can also use their fingerprint to unlock their iPhone if they have previously set up Touch ID, the iPhone’s fingerprint reader Home button.
You should be taken to the Home screen immediately. Search for the Settings app on your home screen. If you can’t see it, you may have hidden it in the application folder. In our example, it is represented by the gear icon in the lower right corner. Open .
Scroll down until you see an option for inside the Settings app. Tap that option.
Inside the Mail, Contacts, and Calendar settings, you’ll want to scroll down until you see the option.
Tap on it now. Tap to dismiss any iOS birthday notification.
You have successfully killed all alerts about iOS’s Birthday calendar. What this means is that your iPhone will no longer show you notifications for birthdays. What this doesn’t do is completely eliminate Birthday notifications. In short, users standing here will no longer see Birthday alerts on their iPhone, but will still receive them online and through the Facebook for iPhone app. Fortunately, we can kill them too.
Return to the Home screen by pressing the Home button at the bottom of your device’s screen. Now search for the Facebook app and open it.
Welcome to the Facebook News feed. Tap in the lower right corner of your screen.
Scroll down until you see it and tap on it.
Tap on it.
Scroll down until you see the “What Notifications You Receive” option. Tap on it.
Get Notifications Now box. After this point, Facebook will no longer remind you of birthdays. You will no longer have to deal with the dozens of reminders we just mentioned. Turning them off here can also kill them on other devices you may have, such as Windows Phones and Android tablets, as Facebook App settings are synced.
Before you decide to turn off Birthday alerts on your iPhone, I suggest you consider how useful they are. For many, Facebook is the only way they can remember their individual birthdays. This makes sense. If that’s the case for you, it might be a better idea to put up with them so you don’t forget someone’s special day. If you agree with this, go ahead and turn off Facebook birthday alerts on your iPhone.
Fortunately, Apple pulls friends and family’s birthdays from Facebook and integrates it into a Calendar for iPhone. Birthdays are taken from Facebook and are also available online through Apple’s iCloud service and Mac OS. If you want to remove Facebook birthday events from your calendar, you can turn it off. But going this far might not be such a good idea.
Friends and family will continue to receive Facebook birthday alerts about you on their phones, as Facebook loves to generate traffic and keep everyone you befriended informed about what’s going on in your life. They will continue to pop up online as well.
