How Do I Search for Friends in Other States on Facebook?
This article talks about the difficulty of finding a particular friend's page on Facebook. It describes how to search for that friend by state and by city, in order to narrow the search. Instructions are given for searching by name with the location filter and for using the search tool to find a friend by location alone.
There are a lot of people on Facebook, so it can be rather difficult to locate the page of a particular friend. After all, there are usually a lot of different people who share the same name. You can use the location search filter to narrow your search so that you are shown only people who live in a particular area.
Searching for a Friend by Name
- Go to Facebook's home page.
- Sign into your account. You cannot search for people on Facebook unless you have an account.
- Enter your friend's first and last names in the search field at the top of the page.
- Click on the "See more results for [Name]" link.
- Enter the home state and city of your friend in the "Type the name of a city or region" field. You cannot enter just a state name by itself.
Searching for a Friend without a Name
If you can't remember exactly what name your friend is going by these days, it is possible to search by region alone. Try searches like "friends in [State Name]" and "friends in [City Name]." Try a number of variations on the search term, including just a state and/or city name alone. Remember that Facebook's search algorithm isn't terribly sophisticated, so your search is going to have to be. Many cities have major boroughs with their own names, and Facebook's search feature doesn't always know to add these boroughs to the search results. You may need to run separate searches by borough name.
If you are having trouble locating a particular friend by location, you can try contacting Facebook's customer service for help. They have a phone number, live chat, email support, a help desk, and a Twitter account.
Further questions?
Solutions to similar problems
Help from Real People
Why does GetHuman Write How-to Guides for Facebook Problems?
GetHuman has been working for over 10 years on sourcing information about big organizations like Facebook in order to help customers resolve customer service issues faster. We started with contact information and fastest ways to reach a human at big companies. Particularly ones with slow or complicated IVR or phone menu systems. Or companies that have self-serve help forums instead of a customer service department. From there, we realized that consumers still needed more detailed help solving the most common problems, so we expanded to this set of guides, which grows every day. And if you spot any issues with our How Do I Search for Friends in Other States on Facebook? guide, please let us know by sending us feedback. We want to be as helpful as possible. If you appreciated this guide, please share it with your favorite people. Our free information and tools is powered by you, the customer. The more people that use it, the better it gets.