How to Block on Facebook Without Defriending

Facebook's Block option automatically prevents a blocked person from seeing your posts and stops his posts from appearing in your Timeline. However, it also terminates your virtual friendship on Facebook, an option that isn't always appropriate. If you can't defriend someone, like an in-law or a friend of a close friend, you can effectively block the person by eliminating his content in your news feed and blocking him from seeing specific posts that you make on your Timeline.

Navigate to your friend's Timeline and then hover the cursor over the "Friends" button on the cover photo. A drop-down menu opens.

Click the "Show in News Feed" option from the drop-down menu. The check mark beside this option disappears, indicating that this friend's posts will no longer appear in your news feed.

Select "Settings" from the Friends button drop-down menu and choose "Only Important" to see only important events in your news feed. Alternatively, click the specific types of events you want to block from your news feed, such as "Photos" or "Games."

Scroll down your Facebook home page until you see the Friends section in the left menu. Hover the mouse over "Friends" and click the "More" option that appears. Click the "Create List" button.

Type a name for the list in the "Name" field. Type the name of each person you want to see in the list in the "Members" field. Ideally, this would be every friend except the ones you don't want to see in your news feed.

Click the "Create" button. Select this list from the left menu of your home page whenever you log into Facebook to see your news feed without any posts from the person you are blocking.

Compose a post on your Timeline as normal.

Click the Audience Selector Tool to the left of the Post button. This tool may read "Friends," "Public," or another audience depending on what audience you last selected.

Click the "Custom" option, then select "Specific People or Lists." Type your friend's name in the "Don't Share This With" text field and click the "Save Changes" button.

Click the "Post" button. The post will not be seen by the person you specified, unless you have tagged that person or a friend of that person in the post.