Social Detective’s Guide: Easily Find Friends and Contacts on Facebook with Six Key Tips

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Facebook lets its users add lots of information about themselves to their profiles, and the inherent function of the platform is to bring people closer together through information sharing. You can leverage this to help you find people, whether it’s a friend you used to know, a family member, etc.

Finding people on Facebook is smart, but dedicated people search engines can also be helpful, even more so if you don’t know their name, you have no friends in common, they’ve blocked you, or if you and/or them don’t use Facebook.

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Run a Name Search on Facebook

The main search bar at the top of the website is one method for finding people on Facebook by their name. Type a name, selectPeople on the left, and then look through the results.

Facebook Search: A Beginner’s Guide

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Search Facebook by the Person’s Employer or School

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Don’t know the person’s name? You can still do a Facebook search for someone, even if you’re not sure what their name is. Knowing where they work or went to school, for example, makes it a lot easier to find them online.

Start by searching for the business/school, and then choosePeople to filter the results by users who have that place listed on their profile. Since lots of people add to their profile the companies and schools they currently or used to be associated with, finding the person suddenly gets a lot easier.

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Piggyback on Your Friends’ Friends

Using one of your Facebook friends to find someone else is one of the best ways to find someone if you suspect the person has anything to do with one of your existing friends.

For example, if they used to work with you and/or another friend, or you used to all go to the same school or live in the same city, a mutual friend search is your best bet for finding them.

There are a few ways to do this:

• Visit a friend’s profile and select theFriends tab to see all of their friends. You can view and search through the full list or read through their recently added friends and friends from groups, such as their workplace, hometown, or high school.
• Another way to find a name on Facebook is to browse the People you may know page.
• Follow Step 1 above and use theFriends of Friends filter.

Facebook lets people hide their friends list , so this won’t work if the friend you’re using has their list locked down.

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Search for People in Public Groups

If you know the person is interested in a particular topic, you can browse Facebook Groups they might be in.

To do this, search for a group from the search bar at the top of the site, and then selectGroups from the menu. Once you’re on the group’s page, open theMembers orPeople section to find the search bar.

SelectPublic Groups on the results page if you want to be able to see its members (closed groups require you to be a member to see the other people who have joined).

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Do a Facebook Search by Phone Number

Trying to figure out who owns a phone number that called you? Facebook can also be used for a reverse number search; just type the number into the search bar to see what shows up.

It’s unlikely that you’ll find public posts that contain their number, but you might have luck digging up an old post made by one of your Facebook friends. This is an easy way to find an old friend’s phone number.

Use the filtering options to narrow down the results. For example, use theDate Posted filter from thePosts tab if you happen to know the year the post was made.

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Use Facebook to Search for Related Information

It can also be useful to use Facebook to find someone’s presence elsewhere on the internet. You’d do this if you already have their Facebook details, but you’re wanting their other social media account links, too.

Every Facebook profile has a unique username at the very end of its URL. Search it on Google or another search engine to see if other accounts show up. Plugging their username into a tool like Instant Username Search can save you loads of time.

Another idea is to do a reverse image search on a photo from the person’s profile. It can be their profile image or any other picture of them from their account. If they’ve posted that image, or something similar, elsewhere on the internet, you might be able to dig up their other accounts. Websites like FaceCheck , TinEye , and PimEyes are great for this.

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