Unrequest friends on Facebook (Unsend or cancel a friend request)

Don't worry if you accidentally sent a friend request on Facebook, or changed your mind after the fact: unless the other party has already accepted or rejected (ignored) your friend request, you will be able to cancel it, or "unrequest that friend": this doesn't unsend the pending friend request, but it deletes it. There are two ways you can unrequest a friend on Facebook: a fast way, which doesn't always work, and a slower way, which always works even with the new Facebook. We'll start with the bulletproof way to cancel a friend request.

Unrequest a friend on Facebook (unsend pending friend requests)

The most reliable way to unrequest a friend on Facebook, or unsend / cancel a friend request you have already sent, is to go through the privacy settings and block that person:

Load the profile of the person to whom you just sent a friend request
Scroll all the way down
On the left side of the screen, click on the "Report/Block this person" link
Facebook will open a popup dialog. Check the "Block this person" checkbox and click "Submit":
Facebook will confirm that this person has been blocked: if you want to let this person contact you in the future, click on the "Privacy" link to unblock this potential friend.
Now that the person is blocked, the friend request has been canceled, or unsent; and remains canceled even if you unblocked this Facebook user.
You can easily check that the friend request was deleted by going to this person's profile: instead of the standard "Awaiting friend confirmation" message you see during a pending friend request, you will see the original "Add as Friend" button.

Behind the scenes explanation: temporarily or permanently blocking a user will cancel pending friend requests ("friend suggestion") you sent, because you cannot add as Facebook friend a user you blocked.

No active friend request message for canceled requests

If the person has kept their default Facebook profile settings, they will receive an email notification like this to accept or deny the friend request; if this is the case, and they click on the link to confirm or ignore the request, Facebook will display a "You have no active requests" message:

Unrequested friend request invisible in Facebook profile

"Un-request" friends directly by canceling the friend request

While you cannot "unsend" a friend request, it is possible in some cases to unrequest a Facebook friend, or cancel a friend request (hopefully) before the other person sees it - follow these steps:

From your Facebook account, go to your friends list
Scroll until you find the friend whose friendship you want to unrequest
Their icon will display a "Friend request pending" message
Click on the close button ("x") to cancel the friend request
If you get to this point, the other person should never see your friend request (and not know about your unrequest of the friend suggestion either).

Either way you chose, we hope that you were able to cancel that request before the potential friend found it, and successfully unrequested your Facebook friend request!

Facebook Tutorial

These free Facebook tutorials were written for the new Facebook, and are updated with each latest version of your favorite social networking site on Windows and Mac.