Make Facebook Useful: Find your Friends

Most of Facebook’s features depend on the idea that there are people in your life that you like to stay in touch with, keep up with, and generally connect with. On Facebook, whether these people are best friends, family, coworkers, or acquaintances, once you connect to them, they are considered Facebook friends. We’ve created a few ways for you to easily find your friends. Without friends, Facebook can feel kind of…empty.

Friend Finder

Friend Finder asks you for your email address and password. Facebook then runs a check of the emails in your address book to see if any of the addresses match people who currently have profiles on Facebook. You can then select which people you would like to send friend requests; friendships on Facebook need to be confirmed by both people before they become official.

Additionally, since we believe that Facebook is most useful when all of your friends are here, Friend Finder will prompt you to invite your contacts to join. You will be able to select which contacts, if any, you’d like to invite.

To get to Friend Finder, click on the little drop-down arrow next to the link for “Friends” in the blue menu on top of every page. When the drop down appears, select “Find Friends.”

Classmates Search

Searching for classmates is an easy way to find good friends that you may have lost track of along the way. To get to Classmate Search, click on the “Search” link in the left menu. When you get to the search page, click on “Search for classmates.”

Once you get to the Classmate Search page, you can search either by high school, or by college. You can’t search both your high school and your university at the same time. To narrow down your results, choose a class year when searching.

Coworkers Search

Coworker search is an easy way to find people you know from your current or former job. You can find Coworker Search in the same menu as Classmate Search.

Once you get to the Coworker Search page, simply enter a company and hit search. You might want to enter a name if you’re looking for someone in particular, but it’s not required.

Name Search

At any time, no matter where you are on Facebook, you can use the quick search box (right beneath the word “Facebook” on the upper left corner of the page) to search for your friends by name. Simply type in the name you are looking for and hit enter.

If you get no results, check to make sure you didn’t misspell or use a former name. If not, you can try searching by that person’s email address (if you know it).