What BuddyPress Auto Friends Does
BuddyPress Auto Friends automatically creates confirmed BuddyPress friendships between your members. You define a welcome group - a set of existing members identified by WordPress role, BuddyPress member type, or hand-picked accounts - and every new signup is silently connected to every member of that group the moment they register.
No friend request is shown. No notification email is sent. New members simply open their profile and already have friends.
The welcome-group model
Section titled “The welcome-group model”The roles or member types you select in settings define your welcome group, not a peer-matching rule. Selecting “Editor” means: every new signup becomes friends with every existing Editor on the site. It does not mean Editors are only friended with other Editors.
This distinction matters on real communities. Your community managers, support staff, or founding members should be in every new member’s friends list from day one - that is what the welcome group achieves.
Key capabilities
Section titled “Key capabilities”- Auto-friendship on registration - new signups are immediately confirmed friends with your welcome group. No pending states.
- Dynamic processing - when an existing user’s role or member type changes, the plugin runs the same welcome-group logic for them.
- Global Friends - hand-pick specific people (not entire roles) that every new signup befriends.
- Manual processing - backfill all existing members at once when you first install the plugin.
- Cleanup on removal - optionally remove plugin-created friendships when a user loses a qualifying role or member type.
- Friend Lists - optional feature letting members organize their friends into named private groups.
- Silent by design - no friend-request or accepted-request emails during any auto-friendship operation.
Requirements
Section titled “Requirements”- WordPress 6.0 or higher
- BuddyPress 14.x or higher (also compatible with BuddyBoss Platform)
- BuddyPress Friends component must be active
- PHP 7.4 or higher
Admin location
Section titled “Admin location”All settings live under WB Plugins → Auto Friends in the WordPress admin sidebar.
Tabs:
| Tab | What it controls |
|---|---|
| Overview | Live stats and one-click backfill for existing members |
| Auto-Friendship | Welcome-group rules, Global Friends, cleanup, and notifications |
| Friend Lists | Optional member-facing friend-list feature |
| License | License key activation for automatic updates |