How to search your old Facebook posts

Facebook has finally begun tapping into their search power, and are finally giving users the opportunity to search by keyword. That means being able to find old posts, posts by other people, or old posts that you may have shared further back than you can physically handle scrolling. Now, looking for a specific post – or even picture or video for that matter – has become much easier with the expansion of Graph Search.

While the update hasn’t come to Android devices yet, it is being rolled out to desktop and iOS users actively. Not everyone will receive the capability at the same time – and Facebook hasn’t put a specific timeline on the issue – but one would imagine that sooner-than-later, everyone will have the ability to search via keyword.

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Once the feature is available on your account and your device the first thing you’ll see is a prompt that explains the new search feature. It will give a brief description of what you can search for, what types of keywords work best, and even give a couple examples of what “good” keyword searches look like.

Search findings will update as you type, and the results will auto-populate but the important part of the search feature is about choosing the right words. If you want to do a general search – the magnifying glass that appears at the bottom of the search options when you’re typing into the search field will give you a general keyword search. However, suggestions will be auto populated throughout the search process.

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One of the really important things regarding the expanded search feature is the use of the correct keywords. Also, with regards to keywords – not using too many words collectively in the search. When it comes to keyword search on Facebook – less is more. Enter the first name if you want to narrow the search that you’re looking for.

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The one challenge with the search concept is the fact that results are not displayed in chronological order. They’re ordered by best chance of being relevant, or containing the most characters in your search. In other words, Facebook measures the risk and makes the decision on what content you might be looking for based on external factors.

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The first major hump users will have to get over is actually understanding how the feature works. Once they understand that – everything else should fall into place. With keyword search though – simplicity is important.