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How to find specific person on facebook


How to Search on Facebook for a Specific Person

By: Carolyn Abram and

Updated: 08-10-2022

From The Book: Facebook For Dummies

Facebook For Dummies

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The search box at the top of Facebook's site allows you to search for a specific person by name. You can use it to find people you're already friends with and you just want to go to their timelines, or to find people you aren’t friends with yet.

But basic search can be a little confusing because Facebook auto-completes the names that you type and assumes you’re trying to get to your friends’ timelines. If you’re the type of person who is used to pressing the Enter key to begin a search, this can send you to friends’ timelines when you meant to search for someone else named James, for example.

Read on to learn better strategies for finding people on Facebook.

You can also use the search box at the top of the site to find posts, pages, groups, events, and even things your friends have liked.

Two basic ways to use Search in Facebook

You’ll wind up using search two basic ways. The first way is if the name of the person you’re looking for (or at least someone with the same name) appears in the auto-complete menu. You can accomplish that sort of search following these steps:

  1. Begin typing the name you're looking for in the search box.

    Pay attention to the people who appear in the autocomplete menu. Facebook displays first your friends and then friends of friends. There’s a good chance that you may find the person you’re looking for in this menu.

  2. If you see the name in the autocomplete menu, use your mouse or arrow keys to highlight the person you're looking for.

  3. Click the name or press Enter.

    This brings you to the person's timeline, where you can verify that you know the person and add them as a friend.

Use "See More" for a further search

  1. Type the person's full name in the search box.

  2. Click See More at the bottom of the search menu.

    The search menu expands to reveal new options for search. So, if you type Jane Smith and then click See More, you can now either search People Named Jane Smith, Pages Named Jane Smith, or Places Named Jane Smith.

  3. Click the People Named ’s> option.

    A blue friend icon is next to this option. A search results page appears with larger previews of people’s profile pictures and timeline info. The right side of the page also has options for narrowing your search using fields such as Gender, Employer, Current City, and so on.

  4. Use the fields on the right side of the page to zero in on your actual friend.

    This might be information like where your friend works or where they're from.

  5. When you find the person you’re looking for, add them as a friend.

About This Article

This article is from the book:

  • Facebook For Dummies ,

About the book authors:

Carolyn Abram was a Facebook employee when the site was young. Her work explaining how to use Facebook began then and has continued ever since. She is also a fiction writer.

Amy Karasavas is a former Facebook employee who helped launch app directories, developers’ resources, and user testing tools. She currently works as a sommelier.

Carolyn Abram was a Facebook employee when the site was young. Her work explaining how to use Facebook began then and has continued ever since. She is also a fiction writer.

Amy Karasavas is a former Facebook employee who helped launch app directories, developers’ resources, and user testing tools. She currently works as a sommelier.

This article can be found in the category:

  • Facebook ,

How to Find People on Facebook Based on City | Small Business

By Steven Melendez Updated May 15, 2019

If you're searching for someone in a particular city, you can narrow your search by location when searching for a person. If you're trying to target an advertising message to people in particular areas, you can also do so using Facebook's advertising tools. If you'd simply like to see information about a city, you can look for Facebook groups and pages related to that city through a search.

Facebook Lookup by City

To do a Facebook lookup or search and narrow it by city, first type the name of the person you are looking for into the search box on the Facebook website or smart phone app. Then, click the "People" tab to indicate you're trying to search for a person.

Under the "Filter Results" options, choose the city you want to limit the Facebook lookup to. If the city you're interested in isn't listed as an option at first, click or tap "Choose a City" and enter the city's name.

This should limit your search to people associated with that city. You can also limit your search to people who have worked at a certain business or attended a particular school by using the other search filter options.

Advertise to People By Location

If you're placing ads on Facebook, you may want to target them to people who live in or are currently in a particular city. This is often useful for a local business that you expect will only cater to people who live nearby.

Use Facebook's Location Targeting feature to achieve this, selecting a city, country or a group of locations to aim your ad at. Choose whether you want to aim the ad at people currently in the location, people recently there, people who live there or people who are traveling there. For example, if your business caters to tourists, you might want to post an ad for travelers, but if it caters mostly to locals, you may wish to limit your ad's reach to residents.

If you choose a wider location like a country, state or continent, you can often also limit your ad to people who live in major cities or in cities of a particular size. This can be useful if your business offers something that caters particularly to urban dwellers or people outside major cities.

Find City Groups and Pages

If you want to know more about a particular city or communicate with people who live there, you can look for Facebook groups and pages related to the city. Often you can find them simply by typing the city's name into the search box on Facebook or using nicknames for the city, such as Big Apple for New York. Look through group and page descriptions to find one or more that seem interesting and might have materials that are relevant to you or provide an opportunity to reach people in that city.

Some groups may require you to join and agree to membership rules before you can interact with the material posted there. Make sure you learn and abide by any policies regarding what can be posted on the group. For example, some may not allow particular language or might ban advertisements. If you break the rules, you might anger the other group members or page users and have your posts deleted.

You may also be able to find lists of popular Facebook groups about a city by searching for articles in publications from that city. Also consider using other social networking tools to find information about or from a city, including Twitter, Instagram and Reddit.

References

  • Facebook: Search Basics
  • Facebook: Target Ads to People in Cities
  • Facebook: About Location Targeting

Writer Bio

Steven Melendez is an independent journalist with a background in technology and business. He has written for a variety of business publications including Fast Company, the Wall Street Journal, Innovation Leader and Business BVI. He was awarded the Knight Foundation scholarship to Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.

How to find a person on Facebook

Magazine ProfiComment welcomes you! Last time we talked about how to find out who viewed your Facebook page.

Today you will learn how to find a person in this social network in different ways. Facebook* is the world's leading social network used by people in different countries. This is very convenient, because there is only one social network, and you can find almost any person. Agree, amazing technological progress!

However, for the safety of each person, his privacy, on Facebook you can only find someone about whom you know enough information. Let's look at how this can be done.

How to find a person by city on Facebook

With a standard attempt to find a person by city, you will encounter difficulty. You will get here as shown in the pictures. First, you probably do this, enter the name of the person in the search box on the main page:

Fig 1. This method is incorrect if you want to find a person on Facebook by the city

and, after going to the page with people search, in the end, you find that there is no way to find a person in the city:

Fig 2 N this page does not have advanced settings for searching for the right person

Therefore, you need to do it as follows. On the right at the top of the page there is a symbol friends :

Fig 3. To find a person in the city, you must click on this icon

Click this icon once and you will see a list of friends who want to join you or have already added. In this pop-up window you should see the link "Find Friends":

Fig 4. By clicking on this link you will be taken to the search for people page with advanced settings find a person by characteristic « Hometown "and" City of residence ":

Fig 5. Now you are in the right place, it remains to enter the necessary data

You can also find advanced search in the same pop-up window of friends below , just click on the link " View all "

Fig 6. Also, advanced search settings are located on this link

The Facebook social network is more complicated than VKontakte, however, this site provides much more opportunities to search for a person. For example:

How to identify a person on Facebook by phone number

Here, in general, everything is much easier than you think, in order to find any person by phone number, you just need to enter the number in the search field and, without having time to click on the magnifying glass icon, you are already you can see a hint with the page of the person you are looking for:

Fig 7. To find a person by phone number, just enter the desired number in the search box

Remember that you can also be found on Facebook by your phone number. If you do not need it, then you need to make the appropriate settings. In the upper right corner of your page, click on the arrow icon as shown in the figure to expand the window with functions. Here, find the link "Settings" and follow it:

Fig. 8. Facebook security settings are located here

Once on the settings page, you need to go to the “Privacy” tab and follow the path of the arrows, as shown in the figure. At the end of the path, choose the option that suits you best. That is, your friends or friends of friends will be able to find you:

Pic 9. Set up your privacy as shown in the picture

How to find a person on Facebook by photo

In order to find a person on Facebook, you need to correctly use the search on Google images. Even if you copy a photo of a person from a social network, or you just have photos, then you don’t need the whole person in the photo, but is his face . If you have a photograph where a person is in full growth or just a portrait where the whole head and body are visible to the waist, then these are inappropriate photographs. You need to take a photo, as shown in the picture:

Fig 10. How to properly prepare a photo for searching a person on Facebook

After you prepare the photo, go to the link above to get to the Google image search service and upload an image to search by clicking on the camera icon.

How to find a person on Facebook* by email

It's very simple. You need to click on the friends icon, as shown in the picture and follow the link " Find friends ":

Fig 11. Open the tab with the hint "Friends"

Next:

Fig. 12. Click on the link "Find friends"

After that, you will see such a page where you need to enter your friend's email address where shown in the picture and click " Find friends ":

Fig 13. Now enter the email address of the person you are looking for here

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*Organization banned in Russia

How to search for people on Facebook by last name, first name, photo, phone number, etc.

Facebook is used to find friends and share information. Finding a specific person here can be more difficult than on other social networks. However, knowing the search algorithms, competently using filters and portal tools, you can quickly find the right person. The following describes how to find a person by name, phone number, city or photo.

Search for friends on Facebook by last name and first name

For all types of searches on Facebook, a general search bar is used in the upper left part of the page.

To find a user, knowing his first and last name, you need to follow the scheme:

  1. Log in and log in through your Facebook account.
  2. Enter the first and last name of the person you are looking for in the search box.
  3. If the name and photo appeared in the pop-up menu, you need to click on it, otherwise move on and click on the "Search by query ..." button.

In the column "Result type" click on the item "People". We are looking for a friend by photo in the proposed list.

You can also use a filter in the search system to find a person by additional parameters:

  • mutual friends;
  • education;
  • work;
  • city or country.

If any of the filter types in the search is not required, it can be removed by clicking on the cross on the right side of the screen. You can return the parameter using the "Add filter" button.

Find friends on Facebook by phone number

Some people don't follow their real first and last names on social networks, searching by mobile number can help. This option is not suitable for all cases, because due to privacy restrictions, the owner can hide data from strangers.

By the way, a Facebook user found this feature of the portal himself. The search could be done by phone number, since the user account was linked to it at the time of registration. Previously, there were no restrictions on searching through a mobile number, but for better privacy, Facebook developers gave users the opportunity to hide their data from the general search and remove them from the page.

Facebook's two main resources will help you search for a person's phone number: the mobile app and the website. You can find a Facebook user, knowing his phone number, like this:

  • Log in to the site using your account.
  • Click on the "Search" field in the upper right panel of the interface.
  • Enter the number in the format 8NNNNNNNNNN or 7NNNNNNNNNN.

Next, you will see a list of registered user matches. You can go to the page - the number will be displayed in the column of personal information.

If the number is not indicated in the profile, but the page was found correctly, it means that the user has removed information about the number from public access, but has not disabled search by this parameter in the privacy settings.

Also searchable via mobile app. In fact, its functionality is similar to the functionality of the site. The Facebook app is free to download on mobile. After authorization, you need to open the search column, enter the numerical combination of the number and get matches. If the exact number is found, only one page will appear: the phone cannot be linked to two accounts.

If the search did not show anything, then the user has disabled the ability to find his page by phone, changed his number, or he is not registered with Facebook at all. If a person is not registered with Facebook or has hidden their data in the privacy settings, the internal search of the social network will not help you.

There is another way to search, and without authorization. It is based on linking a phone number to an account:

  1. If you are logged in, log out of Facebook and redirect to the main page of the social network. Under the authorization window, select "Forgot your password?"
  2. In the field that appears, enter the numeric phone number through 7- or 8- and click "Search".
  3. Look up the username and photo associated with this number and copy it.
  4. Now you can go to your profile and insert the person's first and last name in the search bar. Next, we act according to the above algorithms. By the way, using the same method, you can find a profile by e-mail.

How to prevent your number from being found through a search?

Privacy settings can prevent you from finding your account through your phone. Facebook has two privacy features:

  • Remove your number from the information on the page accessible to all users.
  • Prevent page search by phone number.

How to hide the number from the search:

  • Log in to the site using your account.
  • Open the "Settings" section in the additional menu.

  • Go through "Settings" to the "Privacy" tab
  • In the block "Who can find me?" select search by phone number. In the menu, tap the appropriate option: leave this option for friends, or only for yourself. Don't forget to save your settings.

How to find a person by city on Facebook

It would seem that it is simple, but on Facebook there is no filter by city in the list of results in a standard attempt to find a friend. You need to act on the following pickup:

  • Log in to the site, go to your page (click on your name next to the "Home" button in the upper right corner).
  • Click on the "Friends" icon in the top menu. After that, you will see a list of all your Facebook friends.

A window will open with friend requests and a selection of recommendations from usernames that you may know or have mutual friends with (the "You may know" list). If there are inactive and unconfirmed requests, above the recommended list there will be a list of requests from users to add as friends.

  • Select the "Find friends" field in the upper right corner of the window.
  • Use the right side menu in the opened search form to set the parameters of the person's place of birth and the city where he lives now.

Filters will help you fine-tune the settings and find a person.

How to find a person on Facebook without registering

According to the developers of Facebook, the security of personal data remains a priority of the service. Therefore, the social network is sensitive to maintaining confidentiality. Search without registration in a social network is becoming more and more limited every year.

If you are not registered on Facebook or want to find another person's account without logging into yours, you can use the standard search engine: Google, Search.mail, Yandex. They operate according to similar algorithms:

  • Open a search engine and enter the user's full name in the line, then add "Facebook"
  • The search will return those results in which it finds matches, there may also be a personal page of the person you need.

Privacy settings can complicate everything: the user can prevent the display of his profile in search engines in the settings.

Search for a person on Facebook by photo

Facebook is strongly opposed to the search by photo function, and therefore it is not supported on the social network. Here again, you can turn to the search engines.

Search via Google

Drag and drop the image to the search bar in this case will not be enough. A slightly different approach is needed:

  1. Go to https://www.google.ru/imghp.
  2. Click on the camera icon in the search bar.
  3. Go to the "File Upload" tab and select a photo from those saved on your computer.

After that, Google will display the results found for the query. To be more precise, after the picture, you can drive the word “Facebook” into the search box. Then the search will go on the pictures inside the site.

Search using Yandex

The algorithm is about the same, with a few nuances:

  1. Go to yandex.ru.
  2. On the main page, click on the link labeled "Pictures".
  3. On the next page, find the button with the image of the camera, click on it and then on "Select File".
  4. We are looking for the desired image on the computer and click "Open" - Yandex will give options, including possible matches

Search through a special service

An alternative option is to search using special Internet sites. One of the best solutions is tineye.com. This service allows you to find all references to a photo on the Internet. Take the following steps:

  1. Sign in at tineye.com.
  2. Add or paste an image URL.
  3. Click on search.

Intelligence Search extension

Special services help you find the account you are looking for faster. The Intelligence Search extension is designed for the Google Chrome browser and helps you search for people faster with more precise parameters. To make the extension available, you need to install it, after which an icon will appear in the upper right corner of the browser.

Check if the Intelligence Search extension is activated, this can be done in the browser settings. Go to More Tools and then to the Extensions tab. Intelligence Search must be enabled.

The extension has 4 tabs for 4 different platforms and formats. It allows you to search for people on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, also by video. There is a caveat - to find a Facebook person, you need to switch the Facebook language to English.

On the left side of the extension you can choose who to search for:

  • people;
  • pages;
  • groups;
  • events;
  • publications/posts;
  • photos.

The default search for people is in extension by name. However, here you can select different options:

  1. name;
  2. likes;
  3. place of work;
  4. place of residence;
  5. friends;
  6. communities;
  7. age;
  8. gender;
  9. language;
  10. education;
  11. frequently visited places;
  12. relationship status;
  13. interests.

By combining these parameters, you can set a specific search direction: categories can be combined with each other using the "And" and "Or" functions. For example, let's say we want to find all married men over 48 who work for Google. To do this, combine 4 parameters and click on "Search Facebook". The list of candidates will be presented later. This extension will find a specific person, or a group of specialists, future colleagues in the company where you want to get a job.

Facebook search service "Search is back"

Search Is Back is an advanced search engine for Facebook. With its help, you can find people, photos, events, publications and reposts on Facebook. To detect people, filters "name", "city", "school", "interests", "position", "relationship status" and others are provided. To use this service, you also need to switch the Facebook language in the settings to English, since the service is fully functional only for residents of the United States, where the Search Graph social search is launched.

To use the service, log in to Facebook and follow the link.

There are 4 tabs for searching: "Find people", "Events", "Posts and promotions" and "Photos".

Using the service, you can find a person by gender, hobbies, age, city, marital status.

Learn more