How do you find someone on facebook

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.

And if you’re looking for someone with a common name, you could face hundreds of results. Spotting the person you want could take hours!

But if you have a phone number, then you might have a shortcut.

Let’s see how to find a Facebook account with a phone number – followed by some workarounds to try if you run into obstacles.

How to Find a Facebook Account by Phone Number

The process for finding a business on Facebook if you have their phone number is a simple one.

In this case, I planned to visit a restaurant and wanted to see if their daily specials were posted on Facebook.

Unfortunately, at this time it appears that people, or what Facebook calls personal profiles, are no longer returned in the search results. It’s worth a try though, since Facebook changes all the time!

If you can’t find a person by phone number, I have a couple tricks for you to use that number to narrow down your search, so keep reading.

Let’s look at the basic process on a browser first.

It works the same on computer, tablet, or phone browsers:

1. Head to facebook.com and log in, if you aren’t already.
2. Click the search bar at the top of the screen.
3. Add the phone number of the account you’re searching for and hit return.

Be sure to include the area code to increase your chances of success. But don’t worry about formatting. You can just type the whole number without any dashes.

If the phone number is associated with a Facebook account, you should see the correct result showing at the top of the page. In my search, Karen’s Cafe & Catering came out at the top of the All tab, as well as the Pages and Places tabs.

You can then click the search result and check out the Facebook Page.

How to Use the Mobile App to Find an Account with a Phone Number

The process on a mobile app is a little different, but works the same on both the Google and iOS app versions.

1. Open the Facebook app.
2. Tap the looking glass search icon in the top right corner.
3. Add the phone number as a series of digits with no breaks or formatting, and include the area code.
4. Hit search, and you should get the result you wanted at the top of the page.

You can then follow the search result to find the business’s Facebook Page. You can see below that I got the exact same results in the FB app as I did in a browser.

So, mission accomplished to find a business. But what about a person?

Problems with Finding Someone on Facebook by Phone Number

With the bigger emphasis on privacy recently, there seem to be more problems searching for a phone number on Facebook.

For example, if your potential FB friend has a privacy setting like ‘friends of friends’ on their phone number, you won’t be able to find them if you have no mutual friends.

Your search will return a load of random results – but not your friend!

Sometimes it doesn’t even work when you’re already friends with someone.

But here are a couple tricks you can use to help you narrow down search results when you have a phone number.

Find someone on Facebook with a phone number and name

If you know the person’s name, then use the area code of their phone number to narrow down a location.

Say I’m looking for Jane Doe at 256-555-5555.

Just go to Google and type in “area code 256” – substituting the area code of the phone number you have for 256 😉

Now I can see that Jane Doe lived, or once lived, in Alabama. The major metropolitan area is Huntsville.

So I can search Facebook for “Jane Doe Alabama” or “Jane Doe Huntsville” to narrow the search results, and make finding my friend easier.

Find someone on Facebook with a phone number and NO name

If you don’t remember the person’s full name, or know the correct spelling, try this additional step.

Just go to Google and type in “reverse number lookup” or “reverse phone lookup”.

Click on one of the websites in the search results. Enter the phone number. You may even find their Facebook account this way!

At least, according to what AnyWho told me:

You will have access to the report preview for (256) 555-5555. The full report could contain all sorts of personal information about the owner. This information may include the name, addresses, additional contact information, social media accounts, photos, and more.

Fair warning: You may have to go through numerous popups, create an account, and pay a fee.

And if you don’t end up finding the Facebook account, at least you should get the name. Now you can search for them as in the section above.

Easiest way to find someone on Facebook with a phone number

Sometimes, it pays to be direct! Just text the phone number and ask for a link to their FB account. Or give yours and ask them to send you a friend request.

If they don’t want to do either, then think about whether you should be trying to find them anyway.

You might also want to read: Why Can’t I Send a Friend Request on Facebook?

How to Find Facebook ID Using Mobile Number

So we’ve seen that if someone has their mobile number listed and searchable, it may help you find them. After you do, you can also use it to find their Facebook ID or username.

Once you’ve followed the above process and have found their account, click on their name. This takes you to their profile.

Their ID or username will be on the URL at the top of the page. It will look something like ‘www.facebook.com/namenumber/’

The ‘namenumber’ part will be their ID on Facebook.

Note: if they’ve set a username or “vanity URL,” that’s what you’ll find – not their ID number. I don’t know of a way to find their ID number that actually works in 2022. If you do, let us know in a comment!

On the other hand, if you know their ID and not their phone number, you can use the ID to search for them and find their profile. Or just type it in after “facebook.com/” to go directly to their profile.

Finding Friends on Facebook

Finding your friends on Facebook can be tricky with so many users.

If you know their number and it’s searchable, you may be able to find them this way.

But if it doesn’t work, at least you have their number. You can always text them and ask them for their FB ID, a friend request, or a link to their Facebook account!

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