Every now and then, while browsing Facebook, you will run into a profile that you can’t view the posts and images of. These are known as private profiles and are created when a user toggles on the privacy settings of their Facebook account. So, how do you view a private profile on Facebook?
To view a private profile on Facebook, you need to either become one of the user’s friends or, based on their privacy settings, you may only need to become a friend of one of their friends. To do this, try sending them a friend request, or sending a request to one of their friends.
Now that you generally know how to get into a private Facebook account, it would likely be helpful if you had some more insight on the subject. For example, what should you do if they reject your friend request? Let’s get into this topic in more detail so that you can start browsing the accounts you want to.
What is a Private Profile on Facebook?
A private profile on Facebook is a profile that uses Facebook’s privacy settings to limit what others can see on their profile. People will privatize their Facebook accounts for a number of different reasons, but the main one is in order to protect their information or for their safety.
Anyone on Facebook can preserve their privacy on Facebook through a few different settings through the Facebook privacy settings.
One of the most popular privacy settings to use is the ability to limit who can see your posts and images. This setting can be good for those who don’t want their bosses at work to be able to see their personal account’s posts. It will also help keep you safe from any potential stalkers.
Another popular privacy setting is the ability to limit who can message you on Facebook. For example, some people have it set so that in order to message them, you must at least be a friend of one of their friends. This can help you stop receiving messages from people you don’t know and from botted accounts.
Finally, an extremely common privacy setting that people like to use is the ability to make your Facebook profile harder to find. By default, all Facebook accounts are findable simply by doing a Google search of the person’s name.
However, by using the privacy settings, you can opt out of this feature as well as decide whether people can find your account through your phone number or email.
Essentially, a private account on Facebook is an account that uses one or more of these privacy settings to limit how others can view and interact with their account. However, when people refer to an account as “private,” they are usually referring to an account that limits who can view their posts and pictures.
How Do You Make Your Facebook Profile Private?
Making your Facebook profile private is a great way to protect your online activity from people who do not have your permission to view it. To make your Facebook profile private, you first need to get to the privacy settings. To do this, you just need to follow these steps:
- Open Facebook’s website and log in to the account you want to make private.
- Click on your profile picture in the upper right-hand corner of the screen and select the option that says “Settings & privacy.”
- This will open another menu where you need to select “Settings.”
- In the settings menu, click on the option that says “Privacy.”
This will open the privacy settings menu, where you can change a number of settings to make your profile more private. These settings include things like “How People Find and Contact You,” which will let you change who can send you friend requests, and “How You Get Message Requests,” which limits who can send you messages on the platform.
However, when most people imagine a private Facebook profile, they imagine a profile where people who aren’t your friends can’t see what you post.
You can do this too, under the “Your Activity” tab in the privacy settings menu. Simply edit the option that says “Who can see your future posts?” and set it to Friends. This will make it so that only your Facebook friends will be able to read all future posts you make on the platform.
If you would like to privatize your past posts as well, go to the “Your Activity” tab and edit the option that says “Limit the audience for posts you’ve shared with friends of friends or Public?”. This will allow you to privatize any posts that you currently have listed as public.
How to Make Individual Posts Private
It is also worth noting that you don’t need to make your entire profile private just to privatize one or two posts. It is entirely possible for a public Facebook page to make private posts that are only viewable by either mutual friends or just friends.
To do this, all you have to do is follow these steps:
- Go to your Facebook home page and type out a post you would like to make.
- Once your post has been typed, you should see and open a dropdown option located right under your name.
- Select either the option that says “Mutual Friends” or “Friends.”
- Select “Post.”
After you’ve done this, you have successfully posted a private post on your public Facebook profile.
How to View a Private Facebook Profile
As it turns out, there are actually a couple of different ways to view a private Facebook profile. Let’s go through a couple of these so that you can find a way into the profile you want to view.
Send Them a Friend Request
By far, the easiest and most reliable way to view a private Facebook account is by using the method intended by Facebook’s privacy settings.
By default, private Facebook accounts are set so that only users they are friends with can view their pictures and posts. This means that the best way to gain access to a private Facebook account is to become one of their friends.
To do this, all you have to do is locate their profile and send them a friend request. Then, the only thing you can do is sit back and wait to see if they accept.
The worst part about this step is the fact that there is no telling how long you’ll have to wait for a response. It could be minutes later, days later, or months later before you could get a response. Sometimes users will ignore friend requests entirely, meaning that you could potentially never get a response.
Another potential issue you could run into is if the person you want to friend has used the Facebook privacy settings to make their Facebook account hard to find.
In this case, if it’s someone you know outside of Facebook, the best thing to do is to try to get them to send you a friend request. This would mean that the only thing you would have to do to friend them is to accept their friend request.
Make a Fake Account
Let’s say you try the method above, send them a friend request, and it is either denied or you never get a response. What are you supposed to do in this case? Is it no longer possible to become friends with this person?
Thankfully, the answer to this question is no. One of the most common tricks that people will use to gain access to a private Facebook profile is by creating a fake account.
Essentially, if you think that the owner of the private account has declined or ignored your friend request because they don’t like you, all you have to do is become someone else.
To do this, all you have to do is make a new Facebook profile for someone that you think the user you would like to friend would like. A great way to do this is to think of that user’s interests and base your account around those. You need to make an account that you think that person would want on their timeline.
One important thing to consider when making a fake Facebook account is that the account needs to be believable. If your fake account has no posts, no friends, and no pictures, then the person you’re trying to friend will likely be able to tell that your account is fake.
Consider actually using your fake account for a little bit. Using the fake account, post on some public pages and gain some friends before sending your target a friend request. This will make your account seem active and more like one that your target would want to be friends with.
Become Friends With One of Their Friends
Whether or not this option will work is dependent on your target’s privacy settings. When some users make their profile private on Facebook, rather than limiting their posts to only be viewable by friends, they’ll limit their posts to be viewable by mutual friends as well.
This means that all you have to do to view their posts is become friends with one of their friends. Again, this is not a guaranteed solution as some people really will limit their accounts to only be viewable by friends, but it is worth a shot.