It's the world's biggest social network — with 1.44 billion users to its name — but even if you spend a lot of time inside Facebook's Android app, you may not have explored everything it has to offer. We're here to change that with a comprehensive list of tips, tricks and features to look out for.
Whether you're running Facebook on a Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge or a trusty Nexus 7, you'll find these tips helpful for sorting through your News Feed, improving the security of your account, finding the best content faster and sharing status updates more easily, plus more besides.
Whether you're running Facebook on a Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge or a trusty Nexus 7, you'll find these tips helpful for sorting through your News Feed, improving the security of your account, finding the best content faster and sharing status updates more easily, plus more besides.
1. Use the widget
Facebook's widget is simple but useful nevertheless. It gives you a scrollable window for tapping through status updates by your friends without all the extra adverts and other baggage in the full app. You can update your own status from the widget too by tapping Share. It's a handy way of keeping important information right there on your home screen.
2. Manage your notifications
Drowning in a deluge of updates and alerts from your friends? Facebook actually makes it pretty easy to switch particular types of notifications on and off. Head to App Settings from the main menu, then scroll down to the notification settings — you can enable or disable alerts for wall posts, messages, comments, friend requests, photo tags, event invites and more.
3. Find interesting places nearby
The Facebook app for Android is capable of some tricks that the desktop site isn't — like making better use of your location. Choose Nearby Places to find places around you that have their own Facebook Page: it's a handy way of finding restaurants, bars, shops or other types of venues if you're in an unfamiliar part of the world. Tap on any entry to see the place page.
4. Filter the News Feed
You don't have to settle for the standard News Feed list of updates, because the Facebook app gives you access to your customized lists from the main menu too. To change the list someone appears in, head to their profile, then tap Friends and select Edit Friend List. If you want to add or remove lists (like "family" or "best friends") then you need to do this from a computer.
5. Share from other apps
Sharing across apps is one of Android's strengths, so make use of it: tap the Share button in a photo gallery, web browser or anywhere else, and Facebook appears as one of the options. This is a great way of sharing something to your timeline without having to hunt around on your phone or on the web for it, and you still get all of the usual status update options.
6. Stop videos from autoplaying
One of the most useful entries in the Facebook app settings is Video Auto-play: It lets you turn autoplay on or off, or have it only enabled when you're on a Wi-Fi connection. Thanks to this option you can save on data usage while out and about as well as preventing your News Feed from turning into a dizzying list of looping cat clips and funny animations
7. Save videos and links for later
So many friends to browse through, so little time in the day... if you tap on the drop-down arrow next to a News Feed post that contains a video or link, you can save the content to come back to later. Bookmarked content is kept under the Saved heading on the main app menu (tap See All under Apps if it isn't visible) so you can return to it at your leisure.
8. Check your account security
From inside the Facebook app, tap Account Settings, Security and Active Sessions — here you can see all of the places and devices associated with your Facebook account. If you spot anything suspicious, click on the cross icon to log out from it. It's better to be safe than sorry: Even if you make a mistake you can still log in again from the device or browser in question.
9. Disable chat heads
Messenger is now a separate app on Android, and one of its most distinctive features is the way new conversations appear as 'chat heads' above other apps on your device. If you don't like this behavior, you can turn it off — tap the cog icon inside the Messenger app to access its settings, then tap Chat heads to enable or disable the feature and tweak the way it works.
10. Pick your favorite friends
Messenger may have been spun out into a new app, but your list of online friends remains in the core Facebook app, accessible via a tap on the portrait icon in the top right corner. Select Edit and you can bring the contacts you interact with most often to the top of the list, saving you the time and effort of hunting through the list to find your favorite friends.
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