How to See Someone's Facebook Profile Without Being Friends

With over two billion active monthly users, Facebook is an effective place to find friends, neighbors and classmates from your past. However, due to privacy issues, the information you can find for those not on your friends list may be limited since users can customize their account settings to customize what friends and strangers may view.

Search

Type the full name of the person whose page you want to see into the search bar at the top of any Facebook page and then select the appropriate name when it pops up. If the person does not appear in the first few users on the list, click "See more results" at the bottom of the menu.

Filter

If you get a large number of results, click "People" from the left sidebar to set up filters to narrow the number. Then choose "Location," "Education," "Workplace," or "Mutual Friends" and type in the filter you want to use, such as the name of the high school or hometown. Click on the person's name from within the search results to visit the person's timeline.

Privacy Settings

The amount of information that appears depends upon the person's privacy settings. Users can set their accounts so that people not on their friends list can see only some information. Restricted information may include contact details, friends lists and access to posts on the wall. If you cannot find someone searching by name, try using email or phone number in the search bar since account settings may restrict one type of search but not another.

Blocking

If you still cannot see someone's page, that person may have blocked your access. While you may be able to see some information about a person, blocking may not prevent you from seeing all information about that person, you may mean that you cannot find the user through any type of search. Note that if you have blocked a user, you will no longer be able to visit that person's timeline since blocking is reciprocal on Facebook.