10 Hacks Every Facebook User Should Know

Facebook is clearly no longer the hot social media property it once was—younger generations are now far more likely to spend their time on TikTok, Snapchat, or Instagram —but there are still billions of people logging into the Facebook site and mobile apps each month. During its 20+ years of existence, Facebook has added a whole host of features and options on top of its platform, and branched out in multiple different areas. There's plenty on offer in the modern-day Facebook that you may not know about. Whether you're using Facebook daily or you haven't touched your account for months, these hacks and tips will help you get more from the app: Find out how to stop people from tagging you, how to clear your tracks on Facebook, how to look back on a friendship, and more. Adjust the algorithm to limit AI slop in your Facebook feed Let the Facebook algorithm know what you're interested in. Credit: Lifehacker The Facebook algorithm isn't always well tuned to your tastes and interests, and that might extend to AI slop as well as friends and family members you don't particularly want to hear from. The solution is to give the algorithm a few nudges in the right direction. Tap or click on the three dots in the top right corner of any post in your news feed, and you've got a few options: You can tell Facebook you're not interested in something, mute posts from this source for 30 days, or permanently hide this person or page. There are also options to tweak the algorithm in the other direction—select Interested if you want to see more of this type of content in your feeds. Change your privacy settings to stop other people from finding you on Facebook Facebook can cause you problems when it comes to people from your past reaching out, wanting to know how you're getting on these days. While it can make for some serendipitous reconnections, there may well be old colleagues, friends, and relatives you'd rather not hear from every again. You can control how available you are on Facebook by heading to the website and clicking your profile picture (top right). Choose Settings & privacy > Privacy Center > Common privacy settings > Profile information and then select your Facebook account. On the next screen, select How people can find and contact you . There are a few settings you can tweak here: You can stop people finding you through your email address or phone number, and you can stop your Facebook profile from showing up in web search results. You can also decide whether message requests from people who you're not connected to make it into your main inbox. Choose who you want to see your Facebook posts Your posts on Facebook can be visible to specific groups of people. Credit: Lifehacker Just like on Instagram or Snapchat, you can limit the audience for certain posts—though it's not immediately obvious where the option is. When you're composing a post, you need to tap on the Friends drop-down list just below your name (it might say something else, like Public , if you've already changed the audience for posts). The menu you see next lets you limit the post to any group of Facebook friends you like: Whether it's two people or 200 people. You can either specify the friends who can see the post, or the friends who can't, and you can make new custom lists of contacts by going to your friends directory and choosing Create List . See your entire Facebook friendship history with someone There's quite a cool way of looking back on the moments you've shared with a Facebook friend—at least on this particular social media platform, anyway. Head to the Facebook profile page of a contact, then click the three dots on the right and See friendship . You then get shown photos, posts, and events you've both been involved in. Assuming you both use Facebook fairly often, it's a nice trip down memory lane (you might also see some of this shared content in your feed when your friend has a birthday). Undo your activity on Facebook You can remove a reaction you've left on Facebook. Credit: Lifehacker If you've logged a comment or a like on Facebook that you later regret, you can take it back: On the web, click your profile picture (top right), then pick Settings & privacy > Activity log . This is a record of everything you've done on Facebook. Choose Comments to get to your comments and likes, and to remove them if necessary. You can also delete posts you've made, and searches you've run on Facebook—it's a central hub for viewing and managing your digital tracks on the social media app. Download and save your Facebook photos Facebook used to be the best place to post photos, and it may well be that you've got a ton of pictures on the platform that you haven't saved anywhere else. Maybe you took them before photo backup from phones was so seamless—or perhaps they were snapped with an actual camera and scanned in (remember that?). What do you think so far? You don't have to go through