30 Facebook Hacks To Reconnect With Old Friends

Firstly, ditch the Yellow Pages

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Listen, you wanna find some old friends from your High School and reconnect with them, that's fine! What's not fine is you whipping out the Yellow Pages to try and find them. That thing is so outdated that you probably won't ever find them in there. Best thing to do is head to Facebook.

Start with a Facebook search!

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The first thing you want to do is an old-fashioned Facebook search. Hopefully, by throwing the fishing line out to sea, you might find a few catches. Yet, if someone has the name like "John Smith" you're probably going to struggle finding the right one, especially if you're not sure what they look like anymore.

Pop in the school you used to attend together

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Thankfully, Facebook has an advanced search option these days that allows you to filter your search results based on the characteristics and personal information of the people you're looking for. One good thing is to pop in the High School you both attended together, to see if that brings up anyone.

Where have they worked in the past?

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Naturally, you might not have much information on the person you're looking for, but maybe you know a little bit about where they worked previously and heard about it through the pipeline. If so, pop this in your advanced search on Facebook to see if you can find them!

If you remember where they were born, that might help

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If you were friends with this person as a child, then the chances of you knowing where they were born is quite high. The city of birth is something that Facebook asks for on someone's profile and, while it's not required, a lot of people fill this in, so do pop this to narrow down your search.

Do you have any idea where they live now?

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Maybe you have an inkling of where they live now because you've heard about them through friends of friends. Popping in a base city is always good to try and narrow down your search and filter out the people who aren't a match for who you're looking for.

Can you remember any mutual friends you had?

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Well, it's not very helpful if the person you're looking for has been married four times so has changed their name throughout the years. Facebook search won't always be great in this instance. If that's the case, consider any mutual friends you can find on Facebook and search through their friend list too.

Maybe reach out to them too...

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If you end up finding one of your mutual friends that you had, then there's nothing wrong with reaching out to them on Facebook to ask if they have any idea of the whereabouts of your old friend, or how to get in contact with them. There's no harm in trying!

If you still have their email, that's a bonus

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This one's a bit of a shot in the dark, but maybe you still have the email address of the old friend you had from years ago. Likelihood might be that they used this email to sign up to their Facebook account. Facebook have a feature where you can search in your email address and it will show all your contacts that haven't connected with you.

Pop a post on Facebook

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There's no harm in reaching out to a wider crowd, so feel free to post a plea for help on Facebook to help you find the person you're looking for. Maybe someone on your friends list was also friends with them at some point, and you didn't know about it.

Find Facebook groups you know might help

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There's also the option of using Facebook groups to try and send a plea for help so you can find out where your old friend might be reachable. Obviously, I'm not talking about rogue random Facebook groups, but maybe one dedicated to their hometown or High School.

Do you know the name of their husband or wife?

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Maybe your old friend had a childhood sweetheart that you know they grew up to marry. If that's the case, then try looking for them on Facebook too, as you might just find photos of your old friend where they've been tagged. Or you could reach out to their spouse to get your old friend's number.

So... now you've found them, how do you approach them?

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After taking all the steps above, you might now have managed to find your old friend's Facebook profile, but the next question is, how do you approach that person? Would it be weird if you just reached out directly? What if they don't want to reconnect with you?

Long live the Facebook poke button

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The first thing you can do is try reaching out to them in little ways. Now, the poke button was a great feature that Facebook had, and it may still be swinging around for certain users. However, we wouldn't recommend using it. Back in the day it was great, but nowadays it's just a little bit weird.

Message them directly

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If you're an upfront kind of person, maybe you'll just want to message them outright to see if they respond. "Hey Kelly, it's me Tracy from High School, do you remember me?" I mean, the worst thing that can happen is you get ignored, but maybe it'll re-spark the friendship.

Interact with their posts on Facebook

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Okay, so you're not the upfront kind of person, that's absolutely fine! Instead, try sending subliminal messages that you want to reconnect with your old friend. One thing to consider doing is reacting to their Facebook posts. Now, that doesn't mean you can scroll back through their profile and like posts from 2014!

Follow them on Instagram too

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Maybe consider following them on other social media too, like Instagram. By doing that, you're sending them messages that you want to reconnect, and maybe they'll reach out to you instead! Listen, there's no harm in trying, so give it a go, who knows what'll happen.

If you're playing Facebook games, send them an invite

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Facebook games used to have users in a chokehold. While they're not so popular now, there's still loads of games you can integrate with Facebook and send invites through. Why not send them an invite for a game that you know they're gonna enjoy? They might just take you up on your offer!

Invite them to your Facebook event

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If you've got an event coming up, for example, your birthday, an anniversary, or a Bah Mitzvah, that you've created a Facebook event for, consider inviting them if they're in the area. The worst thing they can do is say no, and you might actually get them to attend.

Post a status tailored towards them

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If you really, really, really, don't want to reach out to them, try posting a Facebook status tailored towards them, that you know only they can answer. That doesn't mean something like "Kelly, I know you're husband cheated on you." More like, "Can anyone remember that Ice Cream shop at the bottom of Queens?"

How can you find them away from Facebook?

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Okay, so you've tried all of our hacks for searching someone up on Facebook and you're still struggling to find your old friend on there. That's fine, it doesn't mean all hope is lost, and you might just find them elsewhere on the internet. Luckily for you, we've got all the tips.

Take a look at the yearbook first of all

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First things first, take a look at your old yearbook if it's a High School friend. You might be asking, why? But ultimately, you can find out lots of information from a yearbook, like who were they friends with? What were their hobbies? What career did they want to go into?

If you have a photo of them, reverse image search it on Google

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You might still have an old photo, or recent photo, of them to hand, and there's no harm in trying Google images' reverse search option to see if that photo (or something similar) pings up on the internet. It's a bit of a rogue tip, and might not work, but could really help!

Search across all the social media platforms

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Facebook is by far one of the most popular social media sites out there, but it's not the only one. You can try searching for your old friend on other social media sites like Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, or Pinterest, just to see if anything does pop up.

Use sites like TruthFinder

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There are some pretty good sites out there that can give you a helping hand when it comes to finding someone on the internet. Truthfinder is an American website that allows users to try searching for people based on their personal information, who knows, maybe you'll find out a few things.

Whitepages is pretty good too

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If all else fails with Truthfinder, then don't be alarmed, there's other sites out there that might work for you too. Feel free to try the internet's answer to the Yellow Pages, Whitepages. Whitepages works pretty similarly to Truthfinder in that you can use the personal information of your old friend to find them.

Just a Google search might do!

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Honestly, an old-fashioned Google search might actually do the trick if you're looking for someone. A tip on this one is to add any information you know about them to the search. For example, if you know John Smith loved rugby, you can put "John Smith Rugby Club."

If you know where they worked, try LinkedIn

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LinkedIn is a fantastic resource for trying to find people if you know where they worked. You might be able to find a professional profile of the person you're looking for and this can be a great avenue to try and find and reach out to your old friend.

Reach out to some close friends to ask!

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Listen, it's okay to ask around and widen your network. Maybe next time you're at ladies brunch, you can ask Marie if she has heard anything about Kelly in the recent years, who can ask Betty, who can ask Lisa, who can ask Felicity, who can ask Isabella, and just maybe you'll find someone that knows something.

If all else fails, you can try sending a letter

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And if all else fails, try sending a letter. Yes it seems pretty old fashioned, but if you have an old address book lying around, and in the address book you've got your old friend's address, send a letter there. If they don't live there anymore, the new residents might have a forwarding address.