In a world where data privacy is increasingly rare, Facebook's private account setting is a godsend. You can keep your messages and most of your personal information away from users you don't want to share it with.
However, it's a different feeling when you're on the other side of the fence and can't see someone's profile. Dating a private account can be quite frustrating as you cannot see their interactions with other users or their reactions to comments or posts. All you will be able to see is their profile picture and maybe their username.
Facebook does not offer you a direct solution to the situation, even if you manage a business page.
Luckily, with a few tried-and-true workarounds, you can unhide any private Facebook account. In this article, we'll show you how to do it.
Is there a way to view private Facebook profiles?
It's not too hard to imagine a situation where you would want unlimited access to someone's Facebook profile. It may be an elite professional that you want to learn from and emulate. Or maybe it's someone you recently met but want to find out in detail before engaging them further. It could even be one of your business competitors, and you can't wait to find out what they've been up to lately.
So, is it possible to consult a private Facebook account? The answer is yes. There are several tools and tricks that can help you view a private Facebook profile. Let's see how each works.
1. Take the high road
By default, a private Facebook account can only be viewed by users who are friends with the account owner. Therefore, sending the owner a friend request is one of the easiest ways to bypass this restriction. Once your request is accepted, you will be able to see their personal details, status updates, stories, and just about anything they decide to share with their friends. You can even dig into their archives and view older posts on their timeline.
The problem with this approach is that you don't know how long the account owner will take to approve your friend request. It can take days, months or weeks. You may also never get a response because Facebook allows users to ignore friend requests.
2. Try social engineering
One of the best things about Facebook's account privacy settings is that they can be tightened or relaxed depending on the wishes of the account owner. When enabling private mode, some people restrict the ability to view their profile to people they are not friends with, but allow "friends of friends" access. This means that you may be able to see your target's profile if you have at least one mutual friend.
So for this to work you need to send at least one friend request to one of the target's friends.
The only downside to this approach is that the target's friend list may also be restricted, making it difficult to find mutual friends. If so, you can try sending friend requests to people who are friends with the target outside of Facebook. Most people tend to use Facebook to connect with their real life friends before expanding the circle to include celebrities and people they haven't met yet.
3. Deploy the Trojan
Sometimes sending someone a friend request to unlock their profile might not work, especially if you want to be hidden and don't want to reveal your true identity to the target. This is where the Trojan comes in. But how does it work ?
All you have to do is create a “fake” Facebook account and then send the target a friend request.
This approach is fraught with risks. If the target has doubts about your identity, they may decide to block you, a decision that could cause even the restricted view of their profile to “disappear” for good. You could also be reported to Facebook for violating the platform's usage guidelines.
So if you want this trick to work, you need to be creative and weed out anything that smacks of deception or identity theft. The best way to do this is to take action to impress the target and influence their decision.
For example, let's say he's an elite gamer and you want to know what tips and tricks he shares with his Facebook friends. You can fill your timeline with posts that portray you as a top gamer, complete with screenshots of some of the most popular video games. You can also post about key gaming industry issues, such as impending releases, upcoming gaming platforms, or even contentious industry-related legal issues.
4. Exploit a loophole in the privacy policy of the Facebook account
In the past, Facebook's account privacy tools were more lenient. For example, it was possible to manipulate a user's Facebook URL and gain instant access to selected personal information, including photos and videos. These days, the platform seems to have taken action to block that.
Facebook has continually tightened the details to make it harder to access private profiles and data. However, a few loopholes still work. One of them is tagged photos.
If two or more people take a photo and share it with friends on Facebook, they can tag themselves to help other users identify each person in the photo by name. If your target has been tagged in a photo, you can easily find them using Facebook's search button. Do this:
- Sign into your account.
- Click on “Search”.
- Enter the following in the text field: Photos of
- For example, if your target is James Clark, you would enter the following: Photos of James Clark
- For example, if your target is James Clark, you would enter the following: Photos of James Clark
Once done, Facebook will run a deep search and show all the photos the person has been tagged in.
4. Try Third-Party Viewer Apps
If social engineering and using “fake” Facebook accounts sounds like a lot of work, you can opt for a dedicated third-party tool that will do all the work for you. One of the most popular tools is PictureMate. But how does it work?
PictureMate is a Chrome extension that lets you find photos of anyone on Facebook. It's a great tool when you want to view someone's photos privately. With the click of a button, you can find any user's photos, even if they were uploaded by someone else. While you might not get all the information you're looking for, PictureMate presents a simple tool that's not only free, but also relatively safe to use.
Here's how to use PictureMate:
- Visit the official PictureMate website.
- Download and add the extension to your Chrome browser.
- Once the extension is installed, restart your browser. This will activate PictureMate, and it should now appear in the top right corner of your browser.
- To use the extension, click on it and enter the name of the person whose photos you want to see.
Many other third-party tools claim to unlock any private account, but some do not work as promised. Others may expose you to fraud or theft of personal data. It is therefore important to do your due diligence before using them. For example, you can search for reviews of a tool on credible product review platforms. This can help you determine if it's legit, safe, and effective.
5. Pay a broker
If none of the methods we have discussed work for you, you can hire a data broker to do the job. Although most data brokers make money by collecting user information in bulk and then selling it, some can help you access the specific profile of whoever you want, but you also have to pay for the service . And, again, you may only have access to selected files such as photos and videos.
This approach is only recommended if it is legal in your current state or country of residence. It is also important to note that if you are embroiled in a legal matter and are seeking evidence, any information obtained this way may not be admissible in court.
6. Try Google
Sending someone a friend request to unlock their profile and view their posts, photos, videos, and status updates can leave you in the dark. You cannot tell when the target will respond. They might even reject the request. Google indexing may offer you a solution.
Indexing is the process of analyzing the content of a website in order to include it in search algorithms. Google crawls Facebook to find any information a Facebook user might have shared with the audience set to "public".
This method works because some people don't set their Facebook audience to "private" immediately after opening the account. Some only change their privacy settings after gaining a significant number of followers or after making a few thousand friends.
To search for any content a Facebook user may have shared with their audience set to "public", simply enter their name in the search box and include "Facebook" in your query to narrow the results. Google will then crawl all the Facebook archives and display all the information it can find.
protect it
There are many ways to view a private Facebook account. However, you need to select a tool that is not only effective but also does not compromise the safety and security of your own data.
Are there any private Facebook accounts that you have successfully unblocked? How did you do? Let us know in the comments section below.
