How to See the Friend Request I Sent on Facebook
The list exists, it is two taps deeper than it should be, and the number on it matters more than people realize.
Here is how to see the friend request I sent on Facebook: open the friend requests area and look for the view sent requests option inside it. That screen lists every request still pending, oldest first, with a cancel control on each one, and canceling is silent on both sides.
Cancelling is silent. The other person is not told, and if they never opened the request they will not know it existed.
The same screen is the one to use when Facebook has temporarily stopped you adding people, because a long pending list is usually the reason.
The same screen matters for a second reason. A long queue of ignored requests is what triggers a temporary block on adding people, and followers are the half of a profile that needs no approval at all, which is what followers on a Facebook profile acts on.
The pending list is not just clutter. It is the input to the limit that catches people.
Facebook watches the ratio between requests sent and requests accepted. A long queue of requests that nobody acted on reads as someone adding strangers in bulk, which is the pattern behind both spam and scraping. The response is a temporary block on sending new requests, and the message that announces it does not explain which behavior triggered it.
That is why the cancel screen is the practical fix rather than a tidy-up. Clearing requests that have sat unanswered for months shortens the queue and removes the evidence of indiscriminate adding.
The other half is the ignore signal. A request that is declined counts against you more than one that is pending, and there is nothing to clear afterwards, which is a reason to send fewer and better ones.
And the limit is not about the size of your friends list. People with large lists and people with small ones hit the same wall, because the system is reading behavior, not inventory.
Finding the list
On the phone, open the menu, go to friends, then friend requests. Inside that screen there is a control for requests you have sent.
On a computer, go to the friends area and choose sent requests in the left-hand list.
The list is ordered by age, which is convenient: the oldest entries are the ones worth clearing.
If you cannot find it, note that it is never on the main profile page. It always lives inside the friend requests screen.
For the number itself, Facebook likes can be ordered with the public link alone, never a password, and the price per 1,000 is shown before you pay.
Canceling, and what the other person sees
Each entry has a cancel control. Confirming removes the request immediately.
If the person had not opened the notification, nothing remains for them to find.
If they had already seen it, the request simply disappears from their list. Facebook does not say it was withdrawn.
After canceling, there is a cooling-off period before you can send a request to the same person again. It exists to stop repeat adding and it is not an error.
Why requests stay pending forever
Many people never check the request screen. Requests from strangers in particular can sit for years.
Accounts that are inactive or disabled hold requests indefinitely, because nobody is there to act.
If the person has their request settings limited to friends of friends, your request may be in a filtered area rather than in their main list.
None of this means you were declined. Declined requests disappear from your sent list rather than lingering in it.
There is one case where a pending request is not pending at all. When somebody deactivates their account, the request stays in your sent list and cannot be acted on by anybody, because there is nobody there. The entry looks identical to a request from an active person who has not checked. If a request has sat untouched for months and the profile picture has gone generic, that is usually what happened, and canceling it is the only thing that removes it from your list.
The friend limit, and what it does to requests
Facebook caps how many friends a profile can have, and the cap is reached by more people than you would expect.
If a low shares count is what puts visitors off, Facebook shares are sold here per order from a public link, with no login asked.
At the cap, incoming requests still arrive and cannot be accepted until you remove somebody, which produces a profile that looks like it is ignoring everyone.
There is no warning as you approach it, and no list of who was added longest ago, so trimming means going through the friends list by hand.
Followers have no such ceiling, which is the structural reason the follow setting exists for personal profiles.
For anybody using a profile for work, the sensible configuration is a modest friends list for people you know and followers for everyone else. It also removes the queue of pending requests that caused the restriction in the first place.
When Facebook blocks you from sending requests
The message mentions a temporary restriction and gives a date. There is no appeal that reliably shortens it.
What helps afterwards: cancel the old pending requests, stop sending to people you have no connection with, and wait out the period rather than trying from another device.
Adding people who share groups, workplaces or mutual friends has a far higher acceptance rate, which is the actual way out of the cycle.
If what you want is an audience rather than friends, switch on followers and let people follow instead. That removes the request mechanic from the equation entirely.
The incoming side has its own controls, covered in stopping requests coming in, and the specific states that make the add button refuse are listed in why a request will not send.
Managing the incoming side too
The same screen lists requests you have received, and leaving them unanswered has no cost to you.
Declining is silent. The sender is not told, and they will not see that it was refused.
If unwanted requests are constant, the setting for who can send them can be narrowed to friends of friends.
That setting affects strangers trying to reach you and does nothing to the requests you send, which are governed by the behavior described above.
If what you actually want is an audience rather than friends, switching on followers removes the request mechanic entirely. Followers on a Facebook profile acts on that public number, and the rest of the Facebook services we carry sit on one page.
And if what you want is an audience rather than friends, professional mode is the route. It sets the follow preference to public on the profile you already have, so people subscribe instead of queueing for approval, and the request mechanic stops being the bottleneck.
Questions people ask about sent friend requests
Where are the friend requests I sent?
Inside the friend requests screen there is a view for sent requests, listing everything still pending with a cancel control.
Does canceling a friend request notify the person?
No. It disappears from their list silently, and if they never opened it they will not know it was there.
Can I resend a request after canceling?
Yes, but not immediately. Facebook applies a waiting period to the same person before another request can be sent.
Why can't I send friend requests any more?
A temporary restriction, usually triggered by many requests that were ignored or declined. Clearing old pending requests and waiting is the fix.
Do pending requests expire?
Not reliably. Requests can sit for years on accounts that are inactive or whose owner never checks the screen.
Is there a limit on how many friends I can have?
There is a ceiling on friends, but the restriction people hit is on sending requests, which is about behavior rather than the size of the list.
Keep reading
- followers on a Facebook profile — Followers are the half of the profile that needs no request and no approval, and followers on a Facebook profile acts on that number directly.
- stopping requests coming in — The incoming side has its own controls, and stopping requests coming in covers the setting and its side effects.
- why a request will not send — When the button refuses, the cause is usually one of a few specific states, and why a request will not send lists them.