Android: Friends

Add friends who will encourage, inspire, challenge, love, and pray for you.

The Bible reminds us we need people in our corner; friends who encourage, challenge, and pray for us, and who need the same from us.

We've updated the Friends feature to keep the community safer. Search results are now more specific, which reduces spam and helps you find the right person faster.

Add Friends

From the Home screen, select You > Friends > Add Friends icon (top right) to get started. From there, you have a few ways to find people:

Search

1. Tap 🔍, enter your friend's YouVersion account email, and search.
2. Select Add next to their name to send a request.

Contacts

1. Make sure their YouVersion account uses the same email saved in your phone's contacts.
2. Select Contacts or Connect with Contacts. (The first time, the Bible App will ask permission to access them.)
3. Select Add next to anyone you'd like to add. Only contacts with a YouVersion account will show up.

Suggested Friends

1. Select Add next to anyone on your suggested list.

QR Code

1. Select Share My Profile at the bottom, then the Scan tab at the top.
2. Scan your friend's code to send a request.

Friend requests only go through when you share a connection: mutual friends, the same church group, a matching email, a saved contact, or a Facebook connection. If you can't find someone, check that one of these applies.

Accept or Decline a Friend Request

We recommend only accepting requests from people you know personally, as it keeps your community meaningful.

1. Select You (profile picture or initial) > Friends.
2. Select Accept to add them, or Ignore to decline. They won't be notified that you declined unless they search your name again.

You can also respond straight from a notification: when someone sends a request, a red dot appears on the bell icon on the Home screen. Tap the bell, then tap the request to accept or ignore it.

Remove a Friend

1. Select You (profile picture or initial) > Friends.
2. Select the friend you want to remove.
3. Select ⋮ (top right).
4. Select Unfriend, or tap outside the menu to cancel.

Adjust Friend Notifications

1. Select You (profile picture or initial).
2. Tap the Settings gear icon.
3. Tap Notification Settings.
4. Tap Email Notifications or Push Notifications.
5. In the Friends section, turn each friend event On or Off.