Your age range on a dating site: how wide to set it

The age range setting is one of the smallest choices on a dating profile and one of the most powerful. It decides, quietly, who ever crosses your screen. Set it too narrow and you can miss people you'd have got on with brilliantly. Set it too wide and you'll scroll past a lot of people you'd never message.

This guide covers how the setting works on most dating sites, how wide to set it, and what to do when changing it seems to make no difference. If you're trying to change the setting on a different dating app, Fish For Singles can't do that for you, but the tips below still apply: the setting will be inside that app.

Where the setting usually lives

Most dating sites and apps put the age range in one of three places:

• Your profile, in the part about what you're looking for.
• Settings, under a heading like preferences, discovery or matching.
• The search screen, as a filter with two sliders or two boxes.

Move the sliders or type the ages you want, then look for a save or apply button before you leave the page. Some apps save as you go; many don't.

How wide should your range be?

There's no right answer, only what suits you. Some starting points:

• Begin a few years wider each side than your first instinct. It's easier to narrow a range after seeing who's out there than to guess well beforehand.
• Think about stage of life, not just the number. Someone a few years older with grown-up children, or a few years younger who's also starting again after a divorce, may have more in common with you than someone exactly your age.
• Be honest about your limits. If an age gap genuinely matters to you, that's fine. A range is there to save everyone's time.

If you've been out of dating for a long while, it's worth knowing that people often look a little outside the range they'd have set years ago. Our guide to online dating when you're out of practice covers what else has changed.

Why changing it can seem to do nothing

You've moved the sliders and yet you're seeing the same faces. A few usual reasons:

• It didn't save. Go back in and check the numbers are the ones you set.
• The app is showing results it loaded earlier. Close the app fully and reopen it, or log out and back in.
• The change only applies to new searches. Run a fresh search rather than scrolling an old list.
• Other filters are still narrowing things. Distance, and any other filters you've set, apply on top of age. If you widened age but kept a short distance, you may still see very few people.

Does your range affect who sees you?

On some sites your age range only changes what you see. On others it also influences who is shown your profile. Help pages usually explain which. Either way, nobody can stop someone outside their range sending a polite hello on every site, and a kind "thanks, but I don't think we're a match" is always fine.

Too few matches? Adjust slowly

If you're seeing very few people, change one thing at a time so you can tell what helped:

1. Widen the age range by two or three years on one side.
2. If that isn't enough, widen it on the other side.
3. Then try increasing the distance a little.

And give it a few days. New people join all the time, and the right one may simply not have arrived yet. The tide comes in at its own pace.

Setting your age range on Fish For Singles

On Fish For Singles you set the age range you're looking for on your profile in the members area. Everyone on the site is 18 or over. Joining, creating a profile and browsing are free; reading and replying to messages needs a paid membership.

When you've found someone you like, our guide to first messages helps with what to say.