On Facebook, the “View As” feature allows you to see what your own Facebook profile looks like to someone else. When you view your profile as another user, you are essentially getting a preview of how your profile appears to that person.
The View As tool is located in the upper right corner of your Facebook profile, in the same drop-down menu where the Activity Log is found. Here are some key things to know about what View As does and how it works on Facebook:
Lets you see your profile from another user’s perspective
The main purpose of View As is to let you see your Facebook profile from the perspective of another user. So if you view your profile as one of your friends, you’ll see exactly what they would see if they visited your timeline. This allows you to preview what parts of your profile are visible or not visible to different people.
Shows you what’s public vs private
View As is helpful for checking your privacy settings. It shows you what information is visible to the public or to particular friends vs what’s only visible to you. So you can make sure your privacy settings are correctly restricting access to certain posts, photos, or other personal information as intended.
Tests audience targeting for posts
If you limit the audience for a certain post, you can use View As to verify that the post is only visible to the people you intended. For example, if you post something only for your close friends to see, you can view your profile as an acquaintance to confirm they can’t see that post.
How to Use Facebook’s View As Feature
Using View As is simple. Just follow these steps:
1. Go to your profile page
Start from your personal Facebook profile page. This is the timeline page other people would visit to see your profile.
2. Click on the View As button
On desktop, View As can be found in the top right corner below your cover photo, in the same drop-down menu as Activity Log. On mobile, tap the three horizontal lines menu icon and choose View As.
3. Select a user to view as
A menu will pop up allowing you to view as a Public user, a Specific Friend, or you can enter the profile URL of any other user. Pick which type of viewer you want to simulate.
4. View your profile as that user
Your profile page will reload and you’ll now be viewing it exactly as the user you selected would. Explore your profile timeline, photos, about info, and posts to see what they can access.
5. Return to your own view
When you’re done, toggle View As off to return to your first-person view of your own profile.
What Does View As Show You?
View As allows you to see your profile from another perspective, but there are some limitations in what it shows:
Posts, photos, and info
You’ll be able to see which of your posts are visible to the selected user. This includes text posts, shared content, photos, videos, and more. However, any posts or info you hid specifically from that person won’t show up.
Audience settings
Any audience targeting settings on posts will be reflected when viewing as someone. So if you restrict a post to only show to friends except for a few people, those people won’t see it when viewing as them.
Mutual content
Content posted by others and visible on your timeline, like posts you’re tagged in or posts by friends, may be hidden if the original poster has limited the audience. You can only see mutual posts the selected user could also see.
Things View As doesn’t show:
– Messages or comments between you and the user
– Notifications, requests, or your friend list
– Whether you’re online or active
– If the user has interacted with your content
So it’s focused just on simulating your profile’s appearance, not reproducing their full experience on Facebook.
Why Use Facebook’s View As Feature
View As can be helpful in many scenarios, like these:
Checking privacy settings
As mentioned earlier, the most basic use case is checking what information is visible to the public or to certain friends based on your privacy settings.
Previewing posts as a specific audience
When limiting the audience on a post, you can verify it’s not visible to others outside that audience. Useful for very personal posts.
Ensuring appropriate content for different viewers
You may share different types of content with close friends vs professional contacts, for instance. View As helps ensure you’re not sharing anything unintended with the wrong audience.
Reviewing how you appear to new connections
If you’ve just added a new friend or begun interacting with someone recently, View As can show you what they see of your profile at this early stage.
Removing tags or hiding posts
If you find content revealed by View As that you don’t want certain people seeing, you can untag yourself or adjust the audience.
Checking visibility of company or organization pages
If you manage a Facebook page, check its appearance from different perspectives like customers or the public.
Limitations of Facebook’s View As Feature
While View As is useful, it does have some limitations:
Not a perfect reproduction
View As aims to simulate how your profile looks to someone else, but it can’t replicate their full user experience. As mentioned, things like chat history and notifications aren’t shown.
Based on current privacy settings
It reflects your current privacy settings, so any past posts or info you’ve already restricted access to won’t appear regardless of the viewer.
Doesn’t override individual post audience settings
If you limit specific posts to only certain people, those hidden posts won’t be visible when viewing as other users even if privacy settings would normally permit it.
Can’t view as page admin roles
For company pages, View As shows the public perspective or a general company teammate perspective. You can’t view the page as a specific admin, editor, moderator, etc.
Accessible only on profiles
View As works when viewing your own profile or a company page you manage, but not on other people’s profiles. You can only see your own profile from other perspectives.
Facebook Viewer – Another Way to See Profiles
In addition to View As, Facebook also offers a feature called Facebook Viewer that lets you see any public profile from different perspectives. Here’s how it works:
What it does
Facebook Viewer lets you view any public profile as a logged in user, logged out user, or specific country/language. This lets you see what different users worldwide would see on a given profile.
How to use it
Go to https://www.facebook.com/browse/viewer and enter the profile username to view it as different users. You can select geographies or ages as well.
Key differences from View As
Viewer lets you see any public profile, while View As only works for your own profile. However, Viewer doesn’t let you view as specific friends and reflects only age/location settings, not detailed audience targeting.
Conclusion
Facebook’s View As feature offers a handy way to get a peek at your own profile from someone else’s perspective. This helps ensure you’re sharing the right content with the right audiences and maintaining your desired privacy settings. While not an exact replication of another user’s view, it provides useful insight into how your profile appears to others. Along with tools like Viewer and Activity Log, it gives you more control over your Facebook presence.