How to See if Someone is Online on Facebook Without Being Friends
The direct message (DM) or messaging feature is present on the vast majority of social media platforms despite their varying purposes and user bases. Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and WhatsApp are just some of the many sites that guarantee their users can communicate with one another in some fashion.
When the simple ability to send and receive text messages between users wasn’t enough, these sites added an online status option. This function notifies your contacts of your online status so that you may engage in conversation with them at the most convenient time.
However, users who aren’t keen on making use of these capabilities have been given an exit strategy. The online status function of Facebook is the topic of today’s blog.
We’ll cover the basics of checking on a friend’s Facebook activity and hiding your own online presence.
But first, we’ll talk about ways to spot when a Facebook user who isn’t your friend is online.
What do you think? Okay, so let’s begin!
Can You See if Someone is Online on Facebook Without Being Friends?
Without being friends, there is no way to check if someone is currently logged into Facebook. As with other social media sites, Facebook users’ online statuses are not public knowledge. Thus, on Facebook, only your friends and followers will be able to see your online status. Only people on your friend list can see when you are currently online.
Facebook won’t tell you if they’re online, but there are ways to find out regardless. Wanna find out more about them? Read on to find out!
Alternative Ways to See if Someone is Online on Facebook Without Being Friends
We’ve already established that Facebook hides the online status of people you aren’t friends with for privacy reasons. However, this is not to say that there is no other option open to you.
We looked into this, and we’ve come up with some quick tricks that should help you out. You must meet certain requirements before you can put any of these to use. Let’s analyze these techniques and see if any of them can help you.
1. Did They Upload a Post Recently? Check Their Timeline
When you see a post from a friend in your Facebook newsfeed, have you ever noticed that the date it was uploaded is listed directly under their name? In any case, you’ll see a date here if you’re looking at a post more than 24 hours after it was originally uploaded.
But if you look at it within the 24-hour window, you’ll see this instead of the date below their names:Just a few minutes ago, xyz or As in, “xyz hours ago.”.
They are online, or were online, if they have uploaded a post within the last few minutes (say, within the last five minutes).
There is only one catch to this trick: the target user must allow anyone to view their profile without being added as a friend.
We doubt this trick will be useful for you, as most users now protect their accounts with a strong level of privacy. If this person, however, has a public account, you can easily tell if they are online by reading their posts.
You must know this person in real life if you’re interested in their Facebook status updates despite not being friends with them. Even if you don’t know each other online, you might have met in person and shared a common experience.
And if you and this person share a mutual Facebook friend, you may be able to see their likes and comments on that friend’s posts. Our second trick is explained in this way.
It is impossible to tell whether or not a user liked a post, but comments work differently. The time each comment was made is displayed beneath each one. Only the first 24 hours of this time will be accurate; after that, you will only be able to see:Day: “xyz D”or week = “xyz”.
So, if you see them commenting on a friend’s Facebook post withminutes of xyz length, it means that they just added that comment a few minutes ago and are probably still online at the time of this writing.
3. Send Them a Message
We both acknowledge that the first two methods discussed are not 100% effective. However, there is an advantage to using such methods: the targeted individual will be completely unaware of your surveillance.
But the method we’re about to discuss requires you to actively seek them out. You can skip this paragraph if you’re not prepared for such a thing and move on to the next one.
This method is only useful if you don’t mind contacting them to find out when they’re online, though.
The only thing you have to do is send them a text message. The moment they receive your Messenger text andSeen online when a notification appears below your message. If you’re using the mobile app Messenger, rather than theSeen If you send someone a notification, a tiny thumbnail of their profile picture will appear in a circular format at the bottom of your message. This still means the same thing, despite how the app displays it.
Closing Remarks:
We’ve talked about how to see if someone is online on Facebook even if you’re not friends with them.
However, there are some tricks you can use to get around Facebook’s lack of a direct method of learning it. But these techniques are not guaranteed to help you. And you should reconsider your plan to spy on them without their knowledge or permission.
In a later section, we covered how to see who is online on Facebook and how to keep your own online status secret. Finally, we’ve included multiple detailed guides on how to carry out these tasks using the Facebook app, Facebook’s website, and Facebook’s Messenger service. Leave a comment below letting us know how our blog has helped you if you are going through something similar.
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