Facebook’s “On This Day” feature allows you to look back at posts and photos you’ve shared on Facebook on a specific day in previous years. This can be a fun way to reminisce about memories from the past. However, many users wonder if they can look up Facebook memories from a day other than the current date. The short answer is yes, it is possible to browse Facebook memories from days other than today’s date, though it requires a few extra steps.
How Facebook’s “On This Day” Feature Normally Works
Normally, Facebook’s “On This Day” feature shows you posts, photos, and life events you’ve shared on the same day in previous years. So if today is October 9, 2023, by default “On This Day” will show you memories from previous Oct 9ths.
The timeline of memories goes back several years (though not necessarily all the way back to the date you joined Facebook). So you can scroll back through memories from Octobers 9 in 2022, 2021, 2020, and earlier.
This feature provides a nostalgic look back at what you were doing and sharing on this day in history. It’s fun to see how your interests, activities, and connections have evolved over time.
Looking Up Memories from Other Days
While the default view shows memories from today’s date in history, you can modify the URL to look up On This Day memories from any date you choose.
To do this:
- Go to the On This Day page, either by clicking on the notification that pops up or going to the menu and selecting “On This Day.”
- This will open facebook.com/onthisday. The page will be focused on today’s date (October 9th for example).
- To see a different date, modify the URL by inserting the desired date in this format:
facebook.com/onthisday?date=MMDDYYYY
So for example, to look up March 17, 2015, you would change the URL to:
facebook.com/onthisday?date=03172015
- Hit enter and Facebook will reload the On This Day feed for that specified date instead of today.
So essentially you just need to edit the URL to contain the exact date you want to reminisce about. The date format always follows the pattern MMDDYYYY with two digits each for the month, date, and year.
Browsing Memories from Meaningful Dates
Being able to manually change the On This Day date allows you to jump back to memories from meaningful days that aren’t today’s date. Here are some examples:
- Anniversaries – Look back on social media memories from anniversaries in previous years, like a wedding anniversary or the anniversary of a first date.
- Birthdays – Relive memories from past birthdays by looking at On This Day from friends’ or your own birthday in previous years.
- Holidays – The winter holidays often fall on different dates year to year. Look up a past Christmas or Thanksgiving on Facebook.
- Vacations – If you took a meaningful trip at a certain time of year, check On This Day for that date to reminisce.
- Big events – Concerts, sporting events, graduations – if a major life event happened on a certain date, you can jump back to it.
Being able to manually navigate to specific dates allows you to focus on reliving memories from past experiences that matter most to you.
Limits and Caveats
While you can browse Facebook memories from arbitrary dates, there are some limits and caveats to be aware of:
- Date range – On This Day memories only go back several years, not necessarily all the way back to the date you joined Facebook.
- Content availability – Some content may have been deleted or removed over time and would not show up On This Day.
- Fewer memories further back – More recent years will typically surface more memories than further back.
- Privacy settings – Content others have shared with you may not be visible based on their privacy settings.
- Interests change – Farther back memories may reflect different interests and connections.
So while you can reminisce about the past, keep in mind the available memories diminish farther back you go.
Other Ways to Look Up the Past on Facebook
In addition to On This Day, there are a couple other ways to take a trip down memory lane on Facebook:
Browsing Your Timeline
Your main Facebook timeline has a timeline sidebar that allows quick navigation back to any past year. Here you can scroll back through all your posts and photos year by year.
Searching for Old Posts
Facebook’s search bar allows searching your own past posts. Try searching for meaningful keywords, events, places, or people to turn up old matching posts.
Downloading Your Data
You can use Facebook’s “Download Your Information” tool to download an archive of everything you’ve posted and more. This lets you browse years of memories all in one place offline.
Conclusion
While Facebook’s On This Day feature focuses on the current day by default, with a simple URL modification you can look up memories from meaningful dates in your past. Just change the date in the URL to navigate to any day’s memories.
Keep in mind available memories diminish the further back you go. But browsing On This Day from anniversaries, birthdays, holidays, vacations, and big events allows reminiscing about experiences that matter most.
Between On This Day date browsing, timeline and search browsing, and data download, Facebook provides several ways to digitally reminisce about the past. Reliving meaningful memories can be a fun experience.