Privacy settings for your Facebook status.

When you share something or post something on Facebook, you need to check what are the privacy settings for that post you have shared.
You certainly don't want everything you share to be seen by everyone in your friends list or seen by anyone on Facebook(even if they are not friends with you on Facebook).
Facebook provides you with very good privacy settings for what you share or post on your profile.

You can see there are three options that you can choose from depending on what you want to do.
Set your status, share a pic or video or ask a question.

The most common thing people do is write a status or add a photo. Asking a question is very rare amongst the users.
The photos you share from here go into the Wall Photos album on your profile and you can have different privacy setting for every photo.

How to set privacy for your status update?

Many people don't want their status/photo to be seen by people who aren't their friends on Facebook. Some want only a few friends to see the status. Also there are a few who don't care even if every person on Facebook reads their status. It all depends on what is being shared.

So how to make your status/photo visible to few friends and hide from others?
It's really simple!
Just some clicks and maybe some keys to be pressed and you can set the privacy as per your wish.

You can see "Friends" and a downward arrow in the snap above. That is what can help you set the privacy.

It need not necessarily be friends in your profile. It can be public, custom or anything else. That tells you the current privacy setting for the post.

By clicking on that tab, you will get a drop-down menu with several options.
From that you can choose the desired setting. It can be public, friends only, friends of friends, only me, custom or choose from the lists you have on your profile.

So here's what the options can do for you:

Public- This makes your status/pic visible to everyone using Facebook.

Friends- Only your Facebook friends will be able to see the post.

Friends except Acquaintances- The post will be visible to your friends except to the people who you add to the "Acquaintances" list.

Only me- No one except you can see the post.

Custom- It is the best if you know how to use it. It is to customise the settings if the above options are not enough to do what you want to.

When you select custom, you will see a box like this:

There are two main sections. One to add who you want to see your post, that is the "Make this visible to" and the second one is to hide the post from certain people as the name says.

As you can see in the snap, there are few options to make the post visible to.

Friends and Friends of Friends are simple to understand and use.

The third option allows you to select specific people or list so that your post will be visible to those people only.

When you select the "Specific People or List" option you are asked to enter the names of friends or lists and suggestions appear from which you need to select the required friend/list.

The "Hide this from" section allows you to hide the post from specific people or lists.

Just start typing the name and then choose from the suggestions.

Same things are applied to sharing a photo on your wall.

There are few more things you can do while sharing.

You can see there are two icons on the lower left corner of the area which appears when you are writing a status.

These are to tag your friends in the status and to add a location respectively.

When you click on the left icon, an area will appear saying "Who were you with?".

Start typing a friends name and then select the name from the suggestions.

If you click on the right icon, the balloon, similar area saying "Where are you?" will appear.

Again begin typing name of the place and select from the suggestions.

Note: If you tag a friend in the status/pic, then that post/pic will appear on his wall and whoever can see his wall will be able to see the post/pic.

Lists on Facebook.

Lists help you organise your friends or things you are interested in the way you want to.
After you have the lists created, you can use them to control what you see in your new feed.
You can also control the visibility of your posts easily using the lists.

You can find the list from the menu at the left on the home page.
Just click on "Friends" or "More" and you will see all the list you have.

At the beginning, you will have some default lists in your account.
They are: Close Friends, Acquaintances, Family,etc.
In addition to these, there are few Smart lists.

Smart Lists:

These are the default lists that Facebook creates and maintains automatically depending on your details.

They are created using your details like your location, school/university, workplace, etc.
All your friends that have details common with you are added to these lists automatically.

These lists are smart as the name says.They update themselves automatically.

So, if any of your friend changes his location, workplace or school, the list will get updated automatically.

Creating your own list:

You can create a list of your own and add desired friends to it.

Go to Home > Friends and you will have an option to create a new list at the top right.

You will be asked to enter the name of the list and names of the friends you want to be in that list.

Once the list is created, you can edit it whenever you want.

How to add friends to lists?

Go to your friends profile/timeline, hover upon the friends tab and you will get an option box having several options including "Add to lists:" and names of the lists you have on your profile.

By clicking on the name of the list, that friend will be added to the list.
You can add a friend to multiple lists if you wish.

You need not necessarily go to your friends profile to add him to a list.

There are few more ways to do it.

When you see any update from your friend on your home page, or the Ticker, you can just hover upon his name or pic to get brief details about him.

There you will see the Friends tab too.Click/hover on that tab and you will see the options there.

You can do the same when you send a friend request to someone.

When you send a request, the "Add Friend" tab changes to "Friend Request Sent".

Click on that tab and you will be able to see the same menu there.


How to remove a friend from a list?

Its as simple as you add a friend to a list.

Follow the steps you did for adding your friend to a list and uncheck the name of the list in which you don't want him to be in.

To add/remove several friends to a list at a time, scroll down and look for the Manage list.

Manage your lists:

Smart Lists/Default lists: They can be edited easily and you can change its settings or add/remove friends from the list.
Go to the list you want to edit and click on the "Manage list" to get the options to edit.

Close Friends

Smart list(location)



These two snaps show you the manage list menu for two different default lists that are created automatically.

First one is a smart list based on your location and the second is the Close Friends list.

They have has several options under the "Manage List" as you can see. 

• Rename as the name suggests, can be used to change the name of the list.
• Edit List is to quickly add/remove friends from the list.
• Choose Update Types allows you to select what updates you would like to see from the people in that list. You can select/deselect the types of updates(eg: status updates, photos, comments and likes, etc.) you want.

The "Edit Radius" option is exclusive for the smart list based on your location. It helps you to set the radius around the location and all the friends within that radius are added to the list automatically.

There is a "Notifications" tab in the close friends list as you can see in the snapshot.
This can be used to receive/stop-receiving a notification when a friend in that list posts something.

There are some more exclusive options for other lists which allow you to manage your list.
The list based on your school has a "Pick Range" option which can help you to set the age range of the friends you want to appear in that list.

Lists created by you: They can be managed in the same was as the smart lists.

Go to the list and click on the "Manage List" tab to get the options.

• Rename List to change the name of the list.
• Edit List to add/remove friends.
• Choose Update Types... to choose what updates you want to see from those friends.
• Delete List is an option which you will find only for the lists you have created. You can delete the list using this option.
  Please note that deleting the list will only delete the list from your profile not the friends in that list. Those friends will still remain as your friends on Facebook.

How to delete a list?

As you can see right above, there is an option for deleting the list you have created.
Using that option you can delete the list.
But it is not possible to delete a smart list or any default list(close friends, acquaintances, etc.).
You can archive a smart list but not delete it.
There is an archive option in the manage list menu for a smart list to do that.
Archiving the list will not delete it but only archive it.


Restricted list:

This is a list which is present in your profile by default.
Initially it will not have any friend. Also it is not like a smart list which works automatically at times.
This list is to help you restrict some people from seeing some content on your profile.
Your friends in this list will not be able to see your posts, pics, some part of the info, etc. if you add them to the restricted list.
This is as good as blocking or unfriending someone. The advantage is that the person will be your friend on Facebook but wont be able to see everything.

What the friends in this list will be able to see is your posts which are public or the posts which they are tagged in.

One more important feature is that those friends in the restricted list will never know that they are in your restricted list and you dont have to change too many settings for that.

How to hide friend list on Facebook?

Facebook's privacy settings allow you to hide your friend list the way you want.
You can hide it from all the users (including friends and non-friends) or from your all your friends or hide it from selected friends.

Firstly, go to your profile/timeline.
Now there are different ways for the people having old profile and the ones having the timeline.

For Timeline users:

• From the timeline, go to your friends page.
• On the top right of the page you will see "Edit" tab.
• Click on the tab and you will get a box to set the privacy for your friend list.
• Choose the appropriate option from those available.

Here in the snapshot, you can see the privacy is set to "Only Me".

You have several other options there and also you can customise the visibility using the "Custom" option which you can see is just under "only me".

The custom allows you to customise the visibility exactly as per your wish.
Yes, you can do exactly what you want!
If you select custom, you will see this box on the screen:

Now you can select the desired option from those appear in the drop-down menu to make it visible to those people or list.
If you select "Specify People or Lists...", you can add names of the people individually who you want to make the friend list visible to.

You can also hide your friend list from specific people the same way.
Just add the names of those people/lists to the "Hide this from" area which you can see in the pic above.
This will hide the list from those people only.

Save the changes and your friend list's visibility is set right as you wanted.

There is one important thing timeline users must know. It is that you will not be able to hide mutual friends. If you have some friends common with a friend, he will be able to see those common friends.

For Old Profile users:

• Go to your profile page.
• Click on the "Edit Profile" tab which appears at the top right of the page.
• From the menu at the left, select "Friends and Family" (refer the pic below).
• You will see Friends section there showing pics of some of your friends and right in-line, there is the "Audience Selector" tab.
• Click on the audience selector tab and you will see list of settings you can use.

You can select any of the available option as per your wish and apply it to your profile.

In this pic i have selected the "Custom" option.
This allows you to customise the visibility exactly as per your wish.
If you select custom, you will see this box on the screen:

Now you can select the desired option from those appear in the drop-down menu to make it visible to those people or list.
If you select "Specify People or Lists...", you can add names of the people individually who you want to make the friend list visible to.

You can also hide your friend list from specific people the same way.
Just add the names of those people/lists to the "Hide this from" area which you can see in the pic above.
This will hide the friend list from those people only.
Save your changes and the visibility of your friend list is set.

Find Friends tab missing on Facebook?

Are you unable to see the "Find Friends" tab on your Facebook?
Relax.Its not a thing to be worried about.
The Find Friends tab is a shortcut to the Find Friends page which is always there on your profile.
Facebook provides that tab at the top right of your pages just to help you get a quick access to that page.
It is there to help you connect to more and more friends on Facebook. Generally, you will see friends of friends or the people from your school, work place, neighborhood, etc. appearing in this section.
You will be able to see this tab on your Facebook initially when you are new. But, it will disappear when you have connected to enough friends.

When does this tab disappear?
I have noticed that this tab automatically disappears when you have connected to 200 friends on facebook. Maybe that is when facebook thinks you have good number of friends or have used facebook enough to know how to add more people. Therefore, the tab is not shown anymore.

If your friend has that tab present on his facebook, then she must be having less number of friends. Eventually, when she adds more than 200 people, her facebook won't show the tab anymore.
So you need not worry if the tab is not present any more. You can get access to your Find Friends page anytime you want.


Here, take a look at how to do that:

Click on the friend requests tab at the top left of you page which shows you incoming friend requests.

In the box that shows up, you will find the "Find Friends" link at the top right as you can see in the above pic.
Clicking on that link will take you to the Find Friends page where you can find more friends.


How to get back the Find Friends tab?

There is a way of getting the tab back. But believe me, you don't want to do that.
For someone curious as you, read on to know how to get back the Find Friends tab.
It is simple. As you know now that the tab disappears when you have more than 200 friends, the tab appears back automatically when you have less than 200 friends.
I tried this myself. I unfriended some people and brought the number down to 199.
After refreshing the page, the Find Friends tab was back! I think this will work for you too. But as i told you, you don't really want to do this to get the tab back. If its gone, nothing is wrong with your facebook. So just chill and have fun on Facebook.

Find your friends on Facebook.

You will surely look for your friends on Facebook once you have your account there.
Here i will try to help you do it better and in an easier way.

Firstly, make sure you have filled in all your info correctly as it can helps in finding your friends.

You got three ways to find your friends on Facebook

• Import your contacts
• Invite your friends
• Search for your friends

Import Contacts:

Go to the Find Friends page and you will see something like this:

By entering your email and password of that email account and then clicking on the find friends button, you can import all your contacts to Facebook.
After the import is done you will be able to send requests to your friends that already have Facebook.If you don't have an option to add, then probably your friend is not having Facebook yet or using some other email for Facebook.
In this case you can either sent an invitation to your friend or you can search for him.

PS: Enter your password associated with the email and not the password you use for Facebook.
Facebook does not store your password so you need not hesitate while using this feature.

Invite your friend individually:

This allows you to invite your friends individually by sending them an email.
Go to the Invite Your Friends page and simply add your friends email, a message(optional) and send the invitation.


What if you don't know your friends email id or you are not able to find him using the email id?
Do not worry.There is one more way you can use and the most effective one to find people on Facebook.
It is the Facebook Search.

Search:

As you are new user, you will have a "Find Friends" tab on your page.
This is present at the top right side of every page between tab having your name and pic and one more tab- Home.
There is also the same tab present on the left side of your home page in the menu which has news feed, messages, etc.

Note: Some of you might not see the Find Friends tab. Here's why?

The Find Friend feature, as the name suggests, is just to help you find your friends.
When you click on it you will see a list of people that you might know.
This is based on the info you had provided like your hometown, school, workplace, etc.
You will find lots of people there but its not necessary that you will find who you want to connect.

So if you don't have the Find Friends tab or you are not able to find your friend on the find friends page, you can search for your friend by typing the name of your friend in the search box.
As you type in a name, you will automatically see the suggestion appearing under the search box.

In the above image you can see how the search box looks when you search.
There are two page suggestions at the top and then followed by the people.
The suggestions here also show that i have mutual friends with those people.That is probably the main reason why they appear in the suggestion list.

If you find your friend here then simply click on his name and you will be redirected to his profile where you can add him.

If the friend you are looking for is not in the suggestions, click on the "See more results..." link appearing at the bottom of the box.

This will open a search page where you will have more options for searching.

Initially you will see the page showing all results which includes pages, people, some posts and other things.
As you are looking for a profile, you need to select the "People" option from the menu at the left.

Here you can see some of the results.If you didn't find what you are looking for, click "See More Results".

There is a better way than the see more result thing.

You can use the search filters to make your search more precise.
There are three filters which help you to search better and fast.

• Location
• Education
• Workplace

In the beginning you will see only the "Location" filter. By clicking on the "Add another filter" link under it you can get the other two.
You can use all three or any one/two of them to search.

As you begin typing the name of any city, school, university or a company, you will get a list of suggestions from which you can select the appropriate option.

Do this for all the three filters (if necessary).

I hope you will find the person you were looking for using the search.
Have fun using Facebook!

How to add friends on Facebook?

         Find the profile of the person you want to add using the search or any other
         way (eg: from your friends profile).

         You can go to their profile/timeline and you will find the "Add Friend" tab.

        

         On the old profile pages, this tab is present at the top right of the page.

          On the Timeline, you can find it right under the cover pic at the right.

The old profile page

The Timeline

•   Simply click on the "Add Friend" tab and your friend request will be sent.
•   The "Add Friend" will change to "Friend Request Sent".

Request Sent

           Your request is sent and you will receive a notification when the person accepts
           your request.

         PS: Send the friend request only to the people you know in real life.