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How to look at profiles on facebook


How to View Your Facebook Profile as Someone Else Would View It

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You can never be too careful when posting things on Facebook. Events and images meant to share with friends or family can accidentally become available to other eyes. There are settings intended to prevent this, but checking every post to confirm the “Private” status is quite challenging.

Fortunately, Facebook has the option to let you see which of your uploads are viewable by everyone. This article shows you how to view your Facebook Profile as someone else would, giving you control over what content you make public.

Viewing Your Facebook Profile as Public on Windows, Mac, or Linux

Viewing your profile as others see it is a simple process when on a PC or Mac. To do so, follow these instructions:

  1. Open “Facebook” in a browser, then click on the “upside-down triangle” (Account menu) in the top-right section.
  2. Select “See Your Profile” at the very top.
  3. Click on the “horizontal ellipsis” (three horizontal dots) under the profile header.
  4. Choose “Profile and tagging settings.”
  5. Scroll down the right pane to the bottom. Next to the “eye icon,” click on “View as” to view what others see on your profile page.

Viewing Your Facebook Profile as Public on Android/iOS/iPhone

Facebook Mobile lets you view your Facebook profile as public as a browser can, though enabling it is slightly different. Here’s what you need to do:

  1. Open the “Facebook app” and go to your “profile page” by tapping on your “profile icon” or the “hamburger icon” (Top of the screen for Android or bottom of the screen for iOS).
  2. To access your profile menu, tap on the “horizontal ellipsis” (three horizontal lines).
  3. Select “View As.”
  4. Your profile appears, displaying all publicly viewable content.

Why Would You Want to View Your Profile as Someone Else?

Social Media has dramatically changed how we communicate with others. It has made posting our thoughts and daily habits second nature. However, taking what we upload for granted can lead to many security risks for you and your family and should not be ignored.

People underestimate the amount of data a simple picture displays. A street sign, a landmark, or even the surrounding houses can give away your location to anyone persistent enough to try and find it, not to mention all of the location data in the image file itself.

If you post images to show off to friends, that is well and good, but it is an easy enough mistake to forget to switch back privacy settings once they become public. Viewing your profile as someone else allows you to see which posts you have made available to everyone else.

You can quickly decide whether these posts are OK to be left to your public profile or subsequently be made private. The ‘View As’ option lets you see all your ‘public’ posts simultaneously and eliminates the tedious post-by-post inspection process.

Take Control of What Others See

If you viewed your profile and felt like too much or too little information is available for public view, you can curate what others see. Of course, you can block people so they can’t see your profile at all, but you can also make some posts private and some posts public.

You can also restrict who can see which posts. For example, if you have Facebook friends you don’t want to see certain posts, you can restrict those individuals.

If you use the View As feature and see a lot of content you don’t want to show everyone you can make your account private. Fortunately, switching your profile from Public to Private (and vise versa) is simple. We have an article here that will walk you through all the steps.

To restrict the posts that other users see tap on the three dot icon next to the post. Then, select Edit Privacy. Tap Friends Except… and add the friends you don’t want to see your posts.

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are the answers to more questions you may have about Facebook’s View As feature.

How do I exit the View As feature?

When you’ve finished inspecting what others can see on Facebook you can easily get back to Facebook’s normal view. All you need to do is click or tap Exit View As in the upper right-hand corner.

Can I view my Facebook profile as a specific person?

Unfortunately, no. Facebook used to offer the option to choose how you could view your profile. You could choose Public or as a specific person. The company, however, removed the feature sometime around 2019.

The only way to see what another person sees (aside from the Public view) is to log into their Facebook account and search your profile.

Keeping Track of Your Uploads

Social media has become so mundane that it is taken for granted in modern times. People post almost anything and everything, from big celebrations to what they’ve had for lunch. Keeping track of what you upload is essential, as you don’t want to share things with people you don’t want to see.

(Updated 2021) How to View What Your Facebook Profile Looks Like to Others

Written by Anne Felicitas, Editor of AdvertiseMint, Facebook Ad Agency.

Update October 2, 2020: The Facebook View As feature is once again available to desktop devices, appearing under the cover photo. This previously removed feature, restored after the rollout of Facebook’s redesign, shows you what your desktop Facebook profile looks like through the eyes of the public, or people you’re not connected with as friends.

New to Facebook advertising? We are the number one rated Facebook advertising agency and we can help you set up, manage, and optimize your ads. Call 844-236-4686 today for a free consultation. 

 

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Update May 31, 2019: After an 8-month hiatus, the View As feature has now officially returned, slowly rolling out to both Android and Apple devices. The View As Feature was disabled back in September of 2018 because of a security issue that affected 50 million accounts. In response, Facebook disabled the feature temporarily.

With this tool’s return comes two big changes. First, the new View As appears to only be available to mobile devices. Previously, it could also be assessed from desktop devices, although that is now not the case. Second, the new View As tool can only show you a version of your Timeline from the eyes of the public, not the eyes of specific users. Previously, you could choose a specific Facebook user to view what that person can see from your Timeline (see the original version of this article below.)

You can find the new View As feature under your Facebook profile photo. Once clicked, the feature will load a version of your Timeline through the eyes of the public (people who are not your Facebook friends).

The updated version of View As is located under users’ Facebook profile pictures.

Scrolling through my timeline, viewing it as “public,” I can see the posts I published with the “public” as my privacy setting.

Note, however, that this feature is still slowly rolling out—not everyone will have access to this feature yet. If you don’t see the View As feature on your app, try updating it. If not, the best you can do is wait until it rolls out to you.

***

Note: This feature was been disabled due to a security issue. In September 2018, Facebook’s engineering team discovered that attackers used a vulnerability in Facebook’s “View As” code to steal access tokens, which were the equivalent of “digital keys” that could be used to access people’s profiles.  Nearly 50 million accounts were affected by this hack.

To prevent further damage and stop the hack, Facebook fixed the vulnerability and alerted the authorities. The social network also reset the tokens of the 50 million affected accounts, as well as an additional 40 million that, although were not affected, used the View As tool. This was an extra precautionary step.

Unfortunately, as another precautionary step, Facebook also disabled the View As tool. Facebook did not indicate when it will restore the View As feature. The following article documents how this feature was previously accessible.

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Have you ever wondered what your Facebook profile looks like to others? I certainly do.

Although my profile is private, I often allow some of my individual posts to appear to the public, which I can do by adjusting each of my posts’ privacy settings.

Unfortunately, as I post more and more each day, adding more content to my Timeline, I can’t remember the posts that are appearing to the public and the number of those posts. As a result, I have no idea what my Facebook profile looks like to people who aren’t in my friends list. For example, my mother. What will my profile look like to mom who, because I didn’t add her on Facebook, stalks my profile once in a while to see what I’m up to? Will she see my feminist rant from three weeks ago, a rant that I don’t want her to see? How about my boss? Will he see my crazy weekend in Mexico? How far will strangers have to scroll to discover embarrassing, teenage posts from five years ago?

As it turns out, I’m not the only person know wants to know what my Facebook profile looks like to the public. Do a simple Google search, and the first few Q&A pages from Facebook will appear, containing questions from Facebook users who want to know how to view their profiles as though they were snooping strangers.

As I was looking through Facebook’s settings, wanting to discover new or old features that may be useful to our readers, I recently discovered a viewing tool that allows you to see what your profile looks like to others. “Others” include Facebook friends and strangers who aren’t included in your friends list. Perhaps you, much like me, wondered the same thing. If so, then this article will confirm your speculations. Here’s how to view what your Facebook profile looks like to others.

Step 1: Go to Settings

Click the expand button (shaped like an upside-down triangle) to get to settings, the second-to-the-last option from the dropdown menu.

If you’re not familiar with your Facebook settings then you should start doing so now. Settings give you the power to control how you want Facebook to work for you. For example, if you’re having trouble with stalkers, you can apply and remove blocks from your settings page under the section called “blocking.” If you want to prevent certain apps from gathering data about you, you can do so from the Apps and Websites section.

Step 2: Go to Timeline and Tagging

From the options located on the left side of your screen, click “Timeline and Tagging.” There, you can also control the options for tagged posts. For example, you can control who can see your tagged posts and enable the feature that allows you to review tagged posts before posting on your Timeline, and, finally, the reason you’re reading this article, what your profile looks like to other people.

Step 3: Click “View As”

On your page, you will see various subsections. Click “View As” under the “Who can see things on my Timeline?” subsection.

After clicking to view, Facebook will direct you to your timeline that people who aren’t your Facebook friends can see. If you can see certain posts and photos, this means those posts and photos are available for public eyes because you posted with a public privacy setting. If you don’t see any content at all, it’s because your profile is private.

Although the example profile below is a private profile, it contains images, information, and photos that are viewable to the public because those posts’ privacy settings were set to “public” rather than to “friends.”

Step 4: Click “View as Specific Person”

But wait—there’s more. Not only can you view your profile through the eyes of the public, but you can also view your profile through the eyes of specific Facebook friends. To do this, click “View as Specific Person” on the black tab hovering above your profile.

After clicking “View as Specific Person,” a search engine, in which you will type in the person whose eyes you want to borrow, will appear. Note that you can only search for Facebook friends. Attempting to search for people who aren’t your Facebook friends will reap futile results.

There you have it. That’s how you can view your profile picture in the perspective of a user not included in your friends list. No longer will you have to wonder, worrying about your Timeline’s appearance to others, worrying about whether or not that embarrassing post from when you were 15 is a mere few scrolls away from discovery.

Now that you know what your Facebook profile looks like to others, take the time to scroll through your Timeline and find the embarrassing posts visible to the public. Then, by clicking on the three-doted button on the upper-right corner of each post, change the privacy settings from public to private. This will allow you to hide posts that you no longer what the public to see.

Learn More:
How to Delete Your Facebook Account and What You Need to Know?

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How to view your Facebook profile if you are not friends ▷ ➡️ Creative Stop ▷ ➡️

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Tutorials

How to view your Facebook profile if you are not friends

How to view your Facebook profile if they are not friends

From time to time I receive messages from readers who ask me cómo ver el perfil de Facebook si no son amigos. La mayoría de ellos ya están suscritos a la famosa red social de Mark Zuckerberg y buscan un sistema práctico y "indoloro" para ver detalles y publicaciones de personas que no están en la lista de amigos, mientras que otros quieren entender cómo tener éxito en la empresa sin tener una cuenta. en el famoso servicio. Para tratar de satisfacer ambas necesidades, decidí entry is my article on the subject. nine0005

Therefore, in the following lines, I will consider all the various and possible practices currently available to achieve success in the company, both in one case and in the other. However, to avoid misunderstandings, I would like to clarify one thing right away: any questionable method or method that may in any way violate the privacy of users, as well as the law, is completely excluded from this guide. All of the methods listed below are 100% legal and anyone can try them, from the most experienced with computers to those who are new to the world of computing. technology and the Internet. nine0005

Having said that, I would advise you not to waste any more time on chattering and to bring this matter up right away. Therefore, if you are also among the readers who have written to me about this or are interested in this topic, I can do nothing but suggest that you take a few minutes to keep everything to yourself, sit back and focus. by reading this guide. I sincerely hope that in the end you will feel very happy and satisfied with what you have learned.

Go to immediately ▶ ︎ Method one | The second way | The third way | View the Facebook profile of those who are not subscribed | Prevent other users from seeing your Facebook profile

Index

  • 1 First method
  • 2 Second method
  • 3 Third method
  • 4 View Facebook profile of those who are not following
  • 5 Prevent non-friends from seeing your Facebook profile01 90

First way

You probably didn't know, but you should know that even if you are not friends with a certain user on Facebook, you can still access their profile and see all the information that is public. The range of details available to you expands if the person whose profile you want to view has kept their data and messages private so that they can be seen by friends of friends, and if, of course, they have at least one friend in common with the reference account. nine0005

Therefore, in order to view the Facebook profile of a specific user who is not on your friends list, the first step is to log into your social network account (through a computer or through a mobile device application, not through) and enter the name in the search bar at the top the person whose diary you want to "view". Then select a relevant search result from those suggested to you, or press the SEND button on your keyboard and use the on-screen filters to refine your search results before choosing any other account. nine0005

Once you see the contact's profile, start scrolling through the log. If there are messages available to you, you will find them on the display, you will see all the likes as well as available comments. If you're looking for something more specific, like a photo or video, you can also view the individual sections that make up the diary by selecting a reference card from those below the cover image ( Información , photo , Friends etc. .). Great, don't you think? nine0005

Second method

Another system available for viewing a Facebook profile if you are not friends is to follow a specific user through a special function offered by the social network. In this way, friendship will not be requested directly from the authorized person, but rather all updates of the same set available in this case can be viewed directly on the home social network. Note that this will give the referring user a specific notification that they have a new follower. nine0005

To start following a Facebook user connected to the social network using your account, go to the profile of the person of interest by searching through the corresponding panel at the top and click the follow button on the cover. Then choose from the menu that appears if you want this person's posts to appear at the top of the section. news ( Show first ) or leave the default display settings ( Default settings ).

Instead, from a mobile phone (or tablet), you must launch the social network application, go to the profile of the person of interest by searching in the search bar at the top, touch the button follow under the cover and choose whether you want to see this person's posts in top of the news section ( Show first ) or leave the default display settings ( Standard consultation ).

Once you've made your choice, whether on PC or mobile, you'll find all the updates to this profile right on the Facebook homepage without having to do any searches from time to time. nine0005

In case of doubt, always and in any case, you can stop being a subscriber of the user you are interested in by returning to his profile, pressing the button follow and selecting the option Do not follow again in the menu that appears.

Third method

As an alternative to putting the previous methods into practice, another way to see your Facebook profile if you are not a friend is to trust the online service. Stalkscan. En detrimento del nombre que sugeriría otra cosa, se trata de una herramienta Online que ofrece la posibilidad de buscar toda la información pública de una persona registrada en Facebook, agrupando los resultados en una única pantalla. Es bastante simple de usar, funciona con cualquier web browser (both on PC and mobile devices) and moreover free of charge. nine0005

Among the information that can be accessed using this tool will be the ability to detect some data not visible in the profiles, photos and posts in which the wanted person has been tagged, as well as all the posts that this particular user has. like or comment. It is important to emphasize that the site does not violate Facebook's privacy in any way by using illegal tools: all visible information is publicly available on the social network. nine0005

Are you asking me how it works? I will explain to you right away. First, connect to the main page of the service, and then enter the link or user ID of the user profile whose information you want to see in the corresponding search field in the center of the screen and press the key with Magnifier is placed on its side. Once the search results page is displayed, click on the data you are interested in and you can see everything right on Facebook.

If you don't know what link is in a Facebook profile, it's the "thing" that appears in the browser's address bar after committing a crime in the referring user's diary. If you don't know how to find a link for a specific profile, you can try to make it yourself using a formula consisting of first and last name (For example, https://www.facebook.com/ Creative Stop ).

If you do not know what User ID , I inform you that this is the identification number of each profile in the social network. You can find it at the bottom of a specific account link, as I also explained to you in my article on how to find the Facebook ID.

Viewing the Facebook profile of those who are not following

As initially assumed, even non-followers of Mark Zuckerberg's social network often wonder how to view the Facebook profile if they are not friends. If you are also part of this user segment, you should be aware that there are several useful systems for this purpose, but in all cases, the only information that will be visible will be those that the contact may have chosen to make public and therefore available to everyone. nine0005

The most practical system you have at your disposal to achieve success in the company is to connect to the Facebook home page through the web browser you usually use to surf the web, and then click on the element People located at the bottom of the screen and has a small size.

If prompted, enter the correct text displayed on the screen on the page that will be displayed at that moment to pass the security control and press the 9 button0011 SEND then choose whether you want to view the full list of all registered people on Facebook in alphabetical order (which IMHO is really insane given the disproportionately large number of followers) or do a targeted search using the corresponding field which is on the right.

You can then click on one of the names in the search results and view their profile details, including some personal information and pages they like. nine0005

Other useful systems for viewing a particular Facebook profile by non-followers consist of looking up the relative first and last name in Google or other search engines, taking care to select relevant results, or relying on the use of certain web services to determine contacts and details about a particular another person on the network, as in the case of Pipl. Para más información al respecto, puedes consultar mi publicación sobre cómo navegar por Facebook sin registrarte a través de la cual procedí a hablarte al respecto con gran detalle. nine0005

Prevent non-friends from seeing your Facebook profile

As a final note, I would also like to show you a number of practical tips that you should consider if you want to avoid having your Facebook profile consulted friends and that they have come across together in the previous lines.

To limit the display of certain content on Facebook, log in to your account and go to the settings of the social network by pressing the button with down arrow which is in the upper right corner and selecting configuration item in the menu that appears. Then click on the item privacy that you will find on the side and change the settings regarding the display of your messages and the ways in which other users can find your account by selecting the options Only me , Friends o Friends of friends .

From your mobile phone (or tablet), simply launch the application by logging into your account, press the button with three lines horizontally to the right, scroll the displayed screen, select configuration , and connect account settings in the menu that appears. On the next screen, click privacy and proceed in the same way as I just indicated, that is, change the settings for displaying your publications and the ways in which other users can find your account.

Further changes to profile privacy for individual data and messages can be made by navigating to help information or an item in your history by clicking the 9 icon0011 people , With world or with it padlock corresponding and selecting the desired option from the menu that appears. Changes you make are applied instantly.

To learn more about aspects related to Facebook account privacy settings, I recommend that you read my guides on how to protect privacy on Facebook, how to privateize photos on Facebook, and how to privateize friends on Facebook, through which I continued to discuss with you this question in more detail. nine0005

How to view your Facebook page and profile through the eyes of a visitor

Greetings, dear readers! 🙋🏻

In this article, you will learn how to view your own Facebook page, as well as your personal profile, as a visitor, that is, without the extra blocks that you see as a page manager or owner of your profile.

This question was repeatedly asked in the comments to various articles, so I decided to highlight the answer to it in a separate article. nine0005

You've probably noticed that other people's Facebook pages you visit look much "neater and cleaner" than your own. As the page admin, Facebook shows you a lot of blocks that only you can see. These are statistics, advertising of various functions and intrusive offers to promote the page and publications. The same goes for personal profiles, which also look different to visitors than their owners.

In order to still understand what visitors and subscribers of your page or profile see, just follow a few steps, which I will discuss below. nine0005

Since many novice Facebook users confuse the terms "page" and "profile", there is an article on the site that explains the difference between them.

IMPORTANT! Please note that the “View as…” feature is only available on the browser version of Facebook (that is, on a computer or mobile browser). In the Facebook mobile apps and Page Manager, which you can read more about in the article “Managing Facebook Ads, Pages and Groups on Mobile Devices”, no such function .

How to view a Facebook page as a visitor

Step 1. Go to your Facebook page and under the cover click on the button with three dots ( ... ).

Step 2. Next, in the drop-down list, select the option " View as visitor to page ".

Click image to enlarge

Step 3. After you have explored your page, you can switch back to the admin panel. To do this, click on the link " Switch back to your view to manage this Page ”, which is in the box above the page cover.

How to view your personal Facebook profile as a visitor

Step 1. Go to your personal Facebook profile and click on the button with three dots on the right side of the cover ( . .. ).

Step 2. Next, in the drop-down list, select the option “ View as… ”.

Click image to enlarge

Step 3. Please note that a dark gray block has appeared above the profile cover, where you can select one of the options:

  • no. This will be all public information about you, as well as all publications that have been made for everyone (with a globe icon).
  • view the profile of "through the eyes" of a certain person , that is, a friend. nine0031

By default, you will see your profile through the eyes of any visitor. If you click on the link " View as a specific person ", then in the line that appears, you can enter the name of any friend and see what this person sees in your profile.

Step 4. After you're done, click on the cross ( X ), which is located on the left in the gray block. After that, you can manage your profile as usual.

Learn more