Discover 5 hidden Facebook features that deserve your attention

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

To change your profile settings and restrict other users’ access to your posts to monitor the links and ads you follow, there are many hidden settings and options available on Facebook that 99% of users do not know about. It opens these features can increase your privacy level and make it easier to track the activities on your accounts making the experience a better one.

1. Lock Your Facebook Profile

By default, your Facebook profile is publicly accessible to everyone. Anyone, whether they have a Facebook account or not, can view your profile, including your profile picture, shared posts, and other activities. While this allows people in your circle to find and connect with you, it poses several privacy risks.

Someone could download your photos and copy other information to impersonate you and scam your contacts. They could track and misuse your shared information, spam you and your friends spread misinformation, and more. To prevent these issues, you can lock your profile, making it visible only to people you’ve added as friends.

2. Track Your Interactions With the Activity Log

Facebook Activity Log – is one of the amazing but lately unnoticed features of Facebook that can aid you in keeping track of your activity on the social network. Here, you have the opportunity to track all your actions which may include posts, comments, likes, etc. You can check the tag history of recent posts that you are tagged in, Reels and Stories that you have interacted in, pages that you have Liked, and polls that you have created or voted for.

Other than that allows you to sort the activity by date and or type of activity to locate the particular activity. If for any reason you would like to sanitise your Facebook profile by tidying up your activities for employment or personal safety, you can always go through the activity log to review, remove or update them. Thus, to observe and control the activity, to open the Activity Log, you need to navigate to Privacy > Settings > Your Activity.

3. Enable Link History

Do you recall a time when you were scrolling through a newsfeed and came across a link, and you used the link to open something, but a little later, you needed the link again, but you lost it since you were just scrolling through Facebook? Yes, you should enable Link History.

It is a feature that shows the recently visited websites (or links) in Facebook’s mobile browser. After opening the browser, you need to follow the below-given steps to enable the link history record. Importantly, this feature is only available on the Facebook app for Android and iPhone whereas it is not an option on the Facebook website version.

It only monitors links that are opened inside the app, but if it’s opening in a browser it won’t be recorded. Links are also removed after one month, or after thirty days, from the date that the connection was made. The Link History data is applied to enhance the ad experience in Meta technologies, and Facebook owns it. Of course, if you don’t want to allow Facebook to track this data then it is advisable to keep this feature turned off.

4. Manage Your Time on Facebook

Considering how quickly you can get immersed in the platforms and waste a lot of time, Facebook provides an option to monitor your usage with the help of “Your Time on Facebook”. You are able to see a more detailed time line of your activities within the day and within the week to be able to see on a daily basis how long you spend using the application. This is healthier as it makes you sensitive on the usage patterns.

If you spend a lot of time, then you can set daily notifications and designate the amount of time that you can spend on it. After the certain amount of time that you set for yourself as a reader, Facebook will inform you that it is time to take a break and do something else in a real life. Quite mode is also available to turn off push notifications of apps or restrict the dots on the status bar.

To check how much time is spent on Facebook and realize your daily/weekly usage go to the Settings tab and tap on “Your Time on Facebook” under Preferences.

5. Secure Your Account

Facebook provides several security features to safeguard your account from cyber threats and unauthorized access.

First, you can enable two-factor authentication, which adds an extra layer of security to your account. This feature requires you to verify your identity using an alternate authentication method when logging in from unrecognized devices. It helps prevent unauthorized access if your password is compromised.

Additionally, you can set up alerts for unrecognized logins to your account. This feature notifies you via email or within Facebook whenever there’s a login from an unfamiliar location or device. Facebook also allows you to view the devices where your account is logged in and remove unrecognized devices.

These lesser-known features on Facebook can significantly improve your experience on the platform. If you haven’t explored them yet, give them a try to see how beneficial they can be. Also, don’t forget to share your favorite features with friends and family so they can benefit from them as well.