Find People on Facebook

Facebook is a vast place, but you may be surprised about how connected people are. When you're trying to track someone down on Facebook, there are a variety of ways you can go about it. From simple searches to scouring friends lists, with a little dedication you can usually find who you're looking for.

Steps

Using Facebook's "Find Friends" Page

  1. Click the Friends button in the top bar of Facebook. You'll see a list of any pending friend requests.
    • The advanced search techniques in this section are only available through the Facebook website. To find friends using the Facebook mobile app, click here.
  2. Click the "Find Friends" link at the top of the menu. This will open a new page with Facebook's friend-finding search tools.
  3. Browse the "People You May Know" section. These are Facebook's suggested friends based on mutual friends and how likely you are to know each other. The list can get pretty long, so you may not be able to make it through the whole thing.
  4. Find the search sidebar. On the right side of the Find Friends page you'll see a sidebar with several search fields. You may have to scroll up if you scrolled down through the suggested friends. Each one of these fields will help narrow down your search.
  5. Use the fields in the search bar to create a custom search. You use any one field or combine multiple ones to try to find the person you are looking for. Each field that you fill out will filter results, and people you are most likely to know will be listed at the top of the results list.
    • If you only know someone's first name and the city they are in, you can type the first name into the "Name" field and enter the town or city into the "Current City" field. You'll likely get a lot of results, but it will make finding a near-stranger much easier.[1]
    • The "Mutual Friend" field can be very useful if you met someone through a friend but didn't catch their whole name.
    • You don't need to enter anything into the "Name" field. For example, you can just use the current city field to see everyone in your town that has their location set as that town.
    • As you enter terms into the fields, you may get suggestions. Select these suggestions for the best results, if they match what you're searching for.
  6. Find friends from your email contacts. The box in the upper-right corner of the Find Friends page allows you to enter your email account information and have Facebook scan for anyone on the list that is using Facebook.
    • Select your email service from the available options. If you don't see yours, select the generic email icon.
    • Enter your email login information. For most services, this is all you will need to do. For Gmail, you'll need to export your Gmail contacts and then upload your contacts file to Facebook.

Searching Facebook

  1. Type someone's name into the Facebook Search field. The most basic way to search for someone is to type their name into the search. You'll find this a lot easier if the person you are searching for has a unique name. Facebook will try to put more useful matches at the top of the list.[2]
    • This search field can be found at the top of the website, or at the top of the Facebook app.
  2. Enter someone's email address or phone number to search for them. If you know someone's email address or phone number, you can enter it into the Facebook Search field to see if it pulls up the person's page. They'll need to have that contact information set as "Public" in order for this search to work.
  3. Type "People that like <interest>" to find people with similar interests. If you want to find some new like-minded friends, use this search to find people with shared interests.
    • For example, to find fellow SpongeBob fans, type "People who like SpongeBob" into the Facebook Search field. The results will include everyone that has listed "SpongeBob Squarepants" as an interest. People that you're currently friends with will be listed first, followed by people you share mutual friends with, followed by everyone else.
    • You can type "people who like what I like" to see a list of matches based on all of your likes. You'll need to click the "People" tab after making this search.
  4. Try turning the person's name into their profile URL. If you know the person's name but can't find them through a search, you can try guessing their profile URL. Many people use their real names or email user names as their profile URL. Common formats include:
    • www.facebook.com/firstname.lastname
    • www.facebook.com/firstnamelastname
    • www.facebook.com/emailname
    • Try adding numbers to the end of the address if the name is common.
  5. Look through your friends' Friends lists. This process is a little more tedious than others, but sometimes just browsing through your friend's friends can help you find who you're looking for.
    • Open your friend's profile page and tap or click the "Friends" button. This will display all of that person's Facebook friends.
    • Browse through the list or use the Search field at the top of the friends list to look for someone specific.
    • You can switch filters along the top of the list to see friends in the same city, friends that went to the same high school, and people you may know.

Using the Mobile App

  1. Tap the More (☰) button and then tap "Friends." This will open the Find Friends section of the Facebook app with the "Friends" tab active.
    • The process for finding friends is essentially the same for both Android and iOS.
  2. Open the new friend Search screen. This screen will allow you to search for people to add, which is useful if you know some of the person's info.
    • Tap the "Search" tab at the top of the "Find Friends" screen. You may have to scroll the tabs to the right to see it.
  3. Search for someone to add. You can search for people using their name, email address, or phone number. You can't perform many advanced searches using the app. See the first section of this article for details on using the Facebook website to find more people.
  4. Check out your suggested friends. The "Suggestions" tab of the Find Friends screen will display your suggested friends based off of mutual friends or other aligning interests. The list can be quite large, and you can continue to scroll down to load more results.
    • The "Suggestions" tab can be found on the far left of the row of tabs.

Related Articles

Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ http://www.cnet.com/how-to/5-tips-for-finding-anything-about-anyone-online/
  2. ↑ http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-search-for-a-specific-person-on-facebook.html
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