10 Hacks Every Facebook User Should Know
Facebook is clearly no longer the flagship social network it once was – younger generations are now much more likely to spend their time on TikTok, Snapchat or Instagram – but billions of people still log into the Facebook site and mobile apps every month.
Over its 20 years of existence, Facebook has added a whole host of features and options to its platform and branched out into several different areas. There are many deals on Facebook today that you may not know about.
Whether you use Facebook daily or haven’t touched your account in months, these tips and advice will help you get the most out of the app: learn how to stop people from tagging you, how to erase your Facebook tracks, how to unfriend you, and more.
Tweak the algorithm to limit AI slop in your Facebook feed
Let the Facebook algorithm know what interests you.
Credit: Lifehacker
Facebook’s algorithm isn’t always well suited to your tastes and interests, and this can extend to AIs as well as friends and family members you don’t particularly want to hear from. The solution is to give the algorithm a few nudges in the right direction.
Tap or click the three dots in the upper right corner of any post in your News Feed, and you have several options: you can tell Facebook you’re not interested in something, mute posts from that source for 30 days, or hide that person or page permanently.
There are also options to change the algorithm the other way: select Interested if you want to see more of this type of content in your feeds.
Change your privacy settings to prevent other people from finding you on Facebook
Facebook can get you in trouble when it comes to people from your past contacting you and wanting to know how you’re doing these days. While this may lead to serendipitous reconnections, there may be former colleagues, friends, and relatives you would prefer not to hear from again.
You can check your availability on Facebook by going to the website and clicking on your profile picture (top right). Choose Settings & Privacy > Trust Center > Common Privacy Settings > Profile Information then select your Facebook account. On the next screen, select How people can find and contact you.
You can change a few settings here: you can prevent people from finding you through your email address or phone number, and you can prevent your Facebook profile from appearing in web search results. You can also decide whether messages requested by people you’re not connected with should be sent to your primary inbox.
Choose who you want to see your Facebook posts
Your Facebook posts may be visible to specific groups of people.
Credit: Lifehacker
Just like on Instagram or Snapchat, you can limit the audience for certain posts, although the location of this option is not immediately obvious. When you write a message, you must press the Friends drop-down box just below your name (it might say something else, like Publicif you have already changed the audience of the publications).
The menu you see next lets you limit the post to any group of Facebook friends you like: whether it’s two people or 200 people. You can either specify which friends can see the post or which cannot, and you can create new custom contact lists by going to your friends directory and choosing Create a list.
View your entire Facebook friendship history with someone
There’s a pretty interesting way to look back on moments you’ve shared with a Facebook friend, at least on this particular social media platform, anyway. Go to a contact’s Facebook profile page, then click on the three dots on the right and See friendship.
You then see photos, posts, and events you both attended. Assuming you both use Facebook quite often, it’s a nice trip down memory lane (you might also see some of this content shared in your feed when your friend has a birthday).
Cancel your activity on Facebook
You can delete a reaction you left on Facebook.
Credit: Lifehacker
If you saved a comment or like on Facebook and later regret it, you can remove it: on the web, click on your profile photo (top right), then choose Settings & Privacy > Activity Log. This is a record of everything you have done on Facebook.
Choose Comments to access your comments and likes, and delete them if necessary. You can also delete posts you made and searches you made on Facebook. It is a central platform for viewing and managing your digital traces on the social media app.
Download and save your Facebook photos
Facebook used to be the best place to post photos, and you might have a ton of photos on the platform that you haven’t saved anywhere else. Maybe you took them before saving photos from phones was so seamless, or maybe they were captured with a real camera and digitized (remember those?).
What do you think of it so far?
You don’t need to go through images and videos individually to export all that content from Facebook and place it elsewhere (like Google Photos). On the web, click your profile photo (top right), then Settings & Privacy > Settings > See more in Account Center > Your information and permissions.
Finally you will see the Export your information option: This allows you to extract all your data from Facebook, including photos, posts and messages. Make sure you choose the Superior quality option for Media quality to get the best versions of your images and videos.
Stop people from tagging you on Facebook
Facebook allows you to manually view posts in which you are tagged.
Credit: Lifehacker
You don’t necessarily want other people to tag you in images and other content (which means those posts will then also be visible on your network). You can enable manual tagging approval to prevent this from happening: On the web, click your profile picture (top right) and select Settings & Privacy > Settings > Profile & Tagging.
When you have tag reviews enabled, you will receive notifications on Facebook when someone else tags you. You then have the option to approve or block the tag (the tagger will not be notified directly, but may notice it if the tag has not been accepted).
Control the type of ads you see on Facebook
Ads are an integral part of the Facebook experience, but you can at least take some control over the types of ads you see and from which companies. On the web, click your profile photo (top right), then choose Settings & Privacy > Trust Center > Common privacy settingsAnd Manage in Account Center below Ad preferences.
You can do a lot here: you can change the ad categories you see, hide ads from specific advertisers, and even access ads you may have saved. So if you want to make a purchase and haven’t been able to make it, you can do it here.
Keep your Facebook conversations secret
Facebook Messenger chats may disappear automatically.
Credit: Lifehacker
Some of us will use Facebook Messenger much more than the main site, and the messaging component of the platform can be modified and customized in several ways. For example, you can set messages to disappear after a set amount of time if you prefer to keep conversations private.
From a Facebook Messenger chat on mobile, tap the contact or group chat name at the top, then choose Messages that disappear. Note that the setting you choose will be applied to all messages from each sender and a notification will be posted to chat if you make a change.
You can give nicknames to your friends and family on Facebook
If you want to spice up a group chat, you can give the contacts in it a nickname: tap the group name at the top of the chat, then choose Nicknames. Keep in mind that everyone will see the nicknames you set (and can change them to something else) and that you can use nicknames or real names when tagging people in chat.
