How to Prank a Friend: 21 Funny Options

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Get a laugh by pulling a fast one on your buddies

Co-authored by Eric McClure

Last Updated: March 25, 2026 Fact Checked

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The trick with pranking your friends is to make sure you find the sweet spot. If a prank is too serious, you risk doing actual harm and potentially damaging your relationship. If a prank is too low-stakes, you’re basically wasting your time. Here, we’ve compiled a list of perfect pranks to pull on a friend. There’s something here for everyone, so flip through the list and find your next diabolical prank!

Quick and Easy Pranks

Put a water bottle over a coin and ask your friend to watch a magic trick. Squirt them when they look over the bottle.
Put a little bit of cling wrap in between the shampoo bottle nozzle and the shampoo itself.
Stick little pictures of Nicolas Cage all over the place and watch your friend go nuts trying to find them all.

1

Water bottle squirt

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Tell your friend you’re going to do a magic trick. Put a penny or dime on the table and set an open water bottle on top of it. Explain to your friend that you’re going to make the coin magically appear in the bottle, and instruct them to look carefully. Once they lower their eye right in front of the bottle, squeeze it and send water splashing all over their face.^{[1]
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2

Masked shampoo

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The next time you use your friend’s bathroom, bring a tiny slip of plastic wrap with you. Open their shampoo and put a few small layers of plastic wrap over the opening of the bottle. Then, screw the top of the shampoo bottle back on. The next time your friend goes to take a shower, they’ll wonder why their shampoo isn’t working!

3

Nicolas Cage treasure hunt

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Take photos of Nicolas Cage and hide them all over their home. This works with basically any celebrity: Nick Nolte, Ryan Gosling, Meryl Streep. Just print a bunch of tiny photos of them and stick them in really subtle places, like over family photos, over cereal box mascots, or on random household products.^{[2]
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- Bonus prank: Tell your friend you hid one extra photo than you actually did. So, if you put up 6 photos of Nicky Cage, tell them you added 7. This will have them scratching their head trying to find the extra image!

4

Fake typing

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In the middle of a longer text convo, find a gif of the typing bubble that matches your friend’s phone model. Then, send them the gif. If you’re successful, they’ll think you’re sitting around typing up a giant reply and wait with bated breath.

5

Bad mouse

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Whenever your friend isn’t paying attention, take a 1 in (2.5 cm) piece of non-translucent tape and stick it on the sensor on the underside of their computer mouse. This will mess with the mouse’s ability to move, and your friend will spend minutes trying to figure out why their computer isn’t responding like normal.^{[3]
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6

Fake snake or spider

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If so, get a fake rat, snake, spider, or whatever animal you’d like, and set it in an inconspicuous area where your friend will stumble on it randomly. Wait to hear what kind of scare they had at your expense once they figure out the thing was fake all along!

7

Temporary tattoo

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Get a temp tattoo, send them a photo, and convince them it’s real. There are so many good fake tattoos out there these days. Pick one up and apply it carefully. Send your friend a photo and act like you’re super excited about your new ink. You’ll freak them out for sure.
- The trick here is to really commit to the bit. Act like you’re super serious about having gotten a tattoo, even if they’re hesitant to believe you at first.

8

Seeing something invisible

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Call your friend to the window and claim to see a cool animal. “Oh man, is that a porcupine?!” “Dude, come check out this crazy stork!” Pick a weird local animal and then point out the window, claiming to see one. When your friend comes to look, keep acting like it’s there—they just need to look really hard. As your friend goes increasingly more confused and upset, go, “Ah, there…it’s gone. You didn’t see it?”
- Bonus points if you can pull this same move off every week or so. Eventually, your friend is going to be convinced they’re losing their mind.

9

Fake missing items

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Pick two innocuous items in your friend’s room (like a stapler, tape dispenser, charger, or book) and move them around. When your friend notices something is off, “come clean” and admit you moved three of their things. They’ll notice the two, but they’ll spend the rest of their days wondering what the third item is.

10

Challenge your friend to Scary Maze

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Scary Maze is a popular prank website game where you have to focus really hard on completing a maze by moving your mouse carefully. The prank is that right as someone gets close to finishing the third round, a giant scary skeleton pops out. Send your friend the game and tell them you can’t get past the fifth level. They’ll focus so hard on trying to beat you that they won’t expect the jump scare.

11

Sticky note bombing

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Pick something your friend loves and cover it in harmless sticky notes. Pick something kind of big, like their computer, TV, or car. Grab some sticky notes and begin putting them all over the item. If you have time, layer the sticky notes os that the entire item gets covered. Your friend will be shocked by the sight and it’ll take them a hot minute to remove all of the sticky notes.^{[4]
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- If your friend needs help removing the sticky note residue, tell them a few drops of rubbing alcohol will do the trick.

12

Surprise balloon room

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You don’t even need helium; you can just blow the balloons up with normal air and stack them on top of each other. Go to their room or bathroom (or even their locker) when they aren’t there and fill it up with balloons. They’ll be totally shocked when they discover what you’ve done!

13

Fake spill

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There are all kinds of fake spill prank products out there. Pick one and sneak it into your friend’s home or classroom with you. When they aren’t paying attention, set the “spill” on top of their computer and scream. They’ll see the spill and assume their stuff is ruined, only to see the “spill” fall off when they lift their item up and see it’s not a real spill.

14

John Cena extension

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Whenever you have access to your friend’s computer, install this Chrome extension on their browser. This extension makes it so there is a 1% chance that any website you load turns into a video of John Cena jumping around and making the “you can’t see me” gesture. It’s a great long-term prank since your friend will only notice every once in a while.

15

Put a vegetable in their mailbox

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That’s the prank. Just hit 'em with the old “zucchini in a mailbox” prank. They’ll wonder where all of these random vegetables are coming from.

16

Frozen cereal

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When you freeze a bowl of cereal (with a spoon in it!), it looks just like a normal bowl of cereal. Invite your friend over for breakfast and serve them the impossible bowl of cereal. Once they realize what you’ve done, imply that’s legitimately how you eat it.

17

Vaseline doorknob

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Coat a door handle in Vaseline and watch their reaction. This one is easy and fast. Grab some petroleum jelly and rub it all over a door knob you know your friend will use. Wait for them to try and open the door and watch the fireworks as they go from startled to confused to grossed out to laughing.
- To clean Vaseline off, use dish soap and a damp cloth to wipe the petroleum away.

18

Glitter in the shampoo

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This is a harmless prank but it’s only for best friends. You don’t want to risk this one with someone who might take it the wrong way, so only do this if you really get the person you’re pranking. Whenever they’re reaching the bottom of a shampoo bottle, sneak a teaspoon of glitter into it. They’ll show up to school or work the next day with the most comically fabulous hair.
- Don’t do this if they’re nowhere near the bottom of the shampoo bottle. You don’t want to waste a full container with a one-time prank.

19

Fake poop on the chair

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Buy some fake poop or create your own and bring it with you to school or work. The next time your friend mentions getting up to use the bathroom, slide the fake poop onto their chair. You can either freak out and scream like you’re shocked by your friend pooping, or just wait for them to notice on their own. The prank may not convince them for long, but for at least a few seconds, your friend will legit think they pooped.

20

Random googly eyes

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Grab a bag of sticky googly eyes and get to work. You can get hundreds of googly eyes for a few bucks, so just go crazy. Stick the googly eyes on your friend’s personal items, their laptop, their phone, their posters, whatever. Your friend will go nuts.
- Turn it into a little game where you try to make funny faces with the googly eyes! You’d be surprised how many natural “mouths” there are out there on random things.

21

Desktop screenshot

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Next time your friend's away from their computer, use the snipping tool or press Windows + Shift + S (Cmd + Shift +3 on Mac) to take a snapshot of the computer’s desktop. Set it to be full screen and watch your friend fumble in confusion as their computer doesn’t respond.^{[5]
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22

Cracked phone screen

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On your friend’s phone, pull up a fake broken screen and then pretend to “drop” their phone. Immediately show them the screen and they’ll go crazy thinking you just cracked their phone!^{[6]
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Question

Can I prank someone multiple times in multiple areas?

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You should wait a while between each prank because the people that you pranked know you pranked them, so they would be keeping an eye on you. Do pranks at unsuspected times.

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What is the best prank?

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1. Wrap a rectangular piece of cardboard in a gum wrapper and offer it to your friends. 2. When setting the dinner table unscrew the lid of the salt shaker and just place the lid on the shaker (but do not screw it back on) and then when one of your family members grabs the salt, all of the salt will end up on their food.

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What can you do if they call the police and are mad at you?

Community Answer

It sounds like your prank went too far. Apologize and explain, and think before you make another mistake like that.

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You could use a Whoopi cushion to prank someone. Try hiding it in their bed beneath the covers. I did this to my mom and sisters, and it was really hilarious. Besides, it's harmless.

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