10 Facebook Life Hacks Every User Should Know
Facebook is certainly not the popular social network it once was—younger generations are now far more likely to spend time on TikTok, Snapchat, or Instagram —but billions of people still log into Facebook’s website and mobile apps every month.
Over its 20-plus years of existence, Facebook has added numerous features and capabilities to its platform and expanded into a wide range of areas. There’s a lot about today’s Facebook that you might not know.
Whether you use Facebook daily or haven’t logged in for months, these tips and tricks will help you get more out of the app: learn how to stop people from tagging you in their posts, how to clear your Facebook footprint, how to remember a friendship, and more.
Tune your algorithm to minimize AI influence on your Facebook feed.
Facebook’s algorithm isn’t always perfectly tuned to your tastes and interests, and this can be due not only to friends and family members you don’t particularly want to interact with, but also to AI flaws. The solution is to give the algorithm a little nudge in the right direction.
Click the three dots in the upper-right corner of any post in your News Feed, and you’ll have several options: you can tell Facebook you don’t want to see that information, turn off post notifications from that source for 30 days, or hide that person or page permanently.
You can also reverse the algorithm—select “Interesting” if you want to see more similar content in your feed.
Change your privacy settings to prevent others from finding you on Facebook.
Facebook can be problematic when it comes to people from your past contacting you, asking about your current activities. While this can lead to unexpected reconnections, it’s quite possible that there are old colleagues, friends, and relatives with whom you’d rather never communicate again.
You can manage your visibility on Facebook by going to the website and clicking your profile photo (top right). Select “Settings & Privacy” > “Privacy Center” > “General Privacy Settings” > “Profile Information,” then select your Facebook account. On the next screen, select “How People Can Find and Contact You.”
Here you can customize several settings: you can prevent people from finding you by email or phone number, and you can prevent your Facebook profile from appearing in web search results. You can also decide whether message requests from people you’re not connected to go to your primary inbox.
Choose who can see your Facebook posts.
Like Instagram or Snapchat, you can limit the audience for certain posts—although it’s not immediately obvious where this option is. When creating a post, tap the “Friends” drop-down menu just below your name (it may say something else, like “Public,” if you’ve already changed the audience for your posts).
In the menu that appears, you can restrict access to the post for any group of Facebook friends: from two to 200. You can specify which friends can see the post and which cannot. You can also create new custom contact lists by going to the friends directory and selecting “Create List.”
View your entire Facebook friendship history with someone.
There’s a pretty cool way to remember moments you shared with a friend on Facebook—at least on this particular social network. Go to your contact’s Facebook profile page, then click the three dots on the right and select “View Friendship.”
Then you’re shown photos, posts, and events you both participated in. If you both use Facebook often enough, it’s a pleasant trip down memory lane (you might also see some of this shared content in your feed when it’s your friend’s birthday).
Undo your Facebook activities
If you left a comment or liked something on Facebook that you later regretted, you can fix it: on the web, click your profile photo (top right), then select “Settings & Privacy” > “Activity Log.” This will record everything you’ve done on Facebook.
Select “Comments” to view your comments and likes and delete them if necessary. You can also delete your posts and searches on Facebook—it’s a centralized resource for viewing and managing your digital footprint on the social networking app.
Download and save your photos from Facebook.
Facebook used to be the best place to share photos, and it’s likely you have a ton of photos on the platform that you haven’t saved anywhere else. Perhaps you took them before backing up photos from your phone became so convenient, or maybe they were taken with an actual camera and scanned (remember those?).
You don’t need to view images and videos individually to export all this content from Facebook and post it elsewhere (for example, to Google Photos). On the web, click your profile photo (top right), then “Settings & Privacy” > “Settings” > “More in Account Center” > “Your Info & Permissions.”
Finally, you’ll see the “Export Information” option: this allows you to extract all your Facebook data, including photos, posts, and messages. Be sure to select the “High Quality” option for media files to get the best possible versions of your images and videos.
Prevent people from tagging you on Facebook.
You don’t necessarily want people to tag you in photos and other content (which means these posts will be visible to your network). You can enable manual tagging approval to prevent this: on the web, click your profile photo (top right) and select “Settings & Privacy” > “Settings” > “Profile & Tagging.”
Once you enable the tag review feature, you’ll receive a Facebook notification whenever someone tags you. You’ll then have the option to approve or block the tag (the person who tagged you won’t receive a direct notification, but they may notice if the tag wasn’t accepted).
Control the type of ads you see on Facebook.
Advertising is an integral part of the Facebook experience, but you can at least control the types of ads you see and the companies that place them. On the web, click your profile photo (top right), then select “Settings & Privacy” > “Privacy Center” > “General Privacy Settings” and “Manage” in the Account Center under “Ad Settings.”
You can do a lot here: change the categories of ads you see, hide ads from certain advertisers, and even access your saved ads—so if you want to make a purchase but don’t have time, you can do it here.
Keep your Facebook conversations private.
Some of us use Facebook Messenger much more often than the main website, and this platform’s messaging component can be customized and personalized in a variety of ways. For example, you can set a setting that will disappear after a certain time if you prefer to keep conversations private.
In a Facebook Messenger chat on mobile, tap the contact or group chat name at the top, then select “Disappearing Messages.” Note that the setting you choose will apply to all messages from all senders, and a notification will be sent when changes are made to the chat.
On Facebook, you can give nicknames to your friends and family.
If you want to spice up your group chat, you can assign nicknames to your contacts: tap the group name at the top of the chat, then select “Nicknames.” Keep in mind that everyone else will see the nicknames you set (and can change them to something else), and you can use both nicknames and real names when tagging people in the chat.