No, not the “Message Requests” folder, which was previously the Most Secret message folder hidden on Facebook—that’s old news. Even if it wasn’t, toggling between two headings under the messages icon is pretty intuitive, no? What we’re talking about is another other folder.
The existence of this hidden folder was brought to my attention via this HelloGiggles post from earlier this week. If it’s news to you, too, get ready for a whole lot of spam, and maybe just enough meaningful missed messages to make you confront the limitations of technological communication.
As the post revealed, this secret folder is essentially Facebook’s spam filter on your phone. In stashing it away, they make it seem way more hidden than it actually is or needs to be for mobile users—by burying it under the ambiguous “Settings” tab. But if you hop on over to an actual computer and head to website, you’ll either end up feeling pretty silly for having never noticed this—or else leave a moderately-deserved comment about what an idiot I am for having never noticed this.
All you have to do is click on “See filtered requests” under Message Requests.
Just like that, you’ll find tens of messages that you never needed to see or reply to. (For example: I once offered hieroglyphic renderings of people’s names on the internet, and my filtered messages are mostly from strangers trying to take me up on it.) You might also have a message from a guy name Jeff, who I guess you met in April 2011, who thought, “Your presence was captivating.” If you work in customer service, or some other field that thrives on comment culture (ahem), you might have to deal with something worse.
Since you won’t get notifications about these messages, it might still be worth it to check every now and then. Or, to be even happier, just delete Facebook forever and go outside.