• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, November 19, 2015

Trying to turn off fewer users, Facebook is testing tools to help them manage how they interact with former flings.

Now, when people change their relationship status to indicate they are no longer in a relationship, they will be prompted to try these tools.

Users can ensure they see less of a former partner’s name and profile picture without having to unfriend or block them. Simply put, their posts won’t show up in a user’s News Feed, and their name won’t be suggested when people write a new message or tag friends in photos.

Upon users’ request, Facebook will also limit the photos, videos and status updates that former partners will see, as well as edit who can see a user’s past posts with a former partner -- and untag them from photos.

These changes come at the request of many users, according to Kelly Winters, a product manager at Facebook.

“When a relationship ends, we’ve heard from people that they sometimes have questions about the options available to them,” Winters notes in a new blog post.

For Facebook, the changes are part of a bigger push to help users trim unwanted memories from their virtual minds.

Per a recent change, users can also tell Facebook’s “On This Day” feature -- which fills their News Feed with old photos -- to exclude specific individuals and dates.

Prior to the change, the feature already tried to limit awkward encounters by automatically omitting posts featuring people that users had previously listed as romantic partners. Yet, the changes made it possible to further refine the editing process.

For Facebook, the changes make perfect sense. Since launching its “On This Day” feature earlier this year, the company has received a ton of complaints from users who didn’t appreciate seeing pictures of departed friends and bad breakups in their feeds.