Users on Facebook create their accounts through phone numbers or emails. So you can always search and find their profiles based on these contact details. But how can you do that? And is it really possible to see people’s accounts on FB by typing their mobile numbers in a search box only?
Finding people on Facebook through their phone numbers
Every search method depends on how much data you can get from it. Thus it’s better to go through all the following search tricks to find out if someone has a Facebook account using their cell phone number.
1. Social media searching tools
Using this method is the fastest way to look someone up on Facebook by phone number only. That should save time and effort as the dedicated social media searching algorithms do the hard work for you. You may get a comprehensive search report with details like social media profiles, photos, usernames etc…Now, here are the best options:
Instant Checkmate
This specialized search engine in social media may help you discover Facebook accounts behind phone numbers. Even better, there is a complete set of features and details about social media users when all you know about them is a contact number.
To start the search, follow the proper steps:
- Visit the Instant Checkmate reverse phone number lookup.
- Manually type your friend’s number or use copy-paste.
- Click on the “Search Now” button.
- The search report may take a minute or so to be prepared for you.
- Once that’s done, there’ll be a report navigation menu from the left area of the screen on laptops. From there, click on “Social”.
- If that person’s phone number is associated with a Facebook account, you may see it under that report menu.
The site also works on mobile devices, but for a better user experience, it’s much better to use a laptop or a tablet.
Here’s one example of a search report generated with someone’s phone number, and we found their Facebook profile Url with username, name, and even some of their friends.
As you can see from the above screenshot, the search report shows other social media accounts and not only Facebook. There could be a profile on Twitter, Tiktok, or Instagram, which is also owned by Facebook. It all depends on how much data the site knows about people on FB, and there could be more or fewer profiles for every new search.
That way, when you see other accounts on social media, use the username on those pages and search for them with the same tool. That’s a useful trick to discover any other hidden account on FB and more sites.
Social Catfish
With its well-built search algorithm, this tool offers more features than other solutions.
To find a friend on Facebook by phone number, follow these steps:
- Open the Social Catfish tool online.
- Type the exact number of that person: For example, “5555555555” (without country code)
- Click on the search button.
- Wait for the search engine to scan billions of records and organize the details.
- Browse the search report and find the “social media” sections which may contain the Facebook account associated with the mobile number you’re searching with.
In addition to that search method, the site offers other options, such as the following:
- Searching by the name of that person.
- Through their usernames on other social networks.
- By photo.
- Search by email.
- And, of course, you can search by home address if you have one.
Intelius
The Intelius search engine brings the power of sophisticated social media algorithms to your hand. In a matter of minutes, you can find people on Facebook by a phone number, which won’t take hours like regular search engines.
To find a Facebook user by phone number, you need to open the site first. Next, type the full name of that user and validate.
Now, Wait a minute or so till the system shows you some details found on that number. Finally, take a look at the social media section under that phone number search, and you may get the exact profile URL to the linked Facebook account.
2. Regular Search engines
Some search engines are better than others, but in all cases, the following should be the most popular options that you can count on.
No other search engine works better than Google even if that’s changing every year. It has the largest data centers in the US and across the globe. Also, Google used to offer a reverse phone lookup database, years ago, but that was discontinued due to privacy issues.
Anyway, Google is still one of the most accurate search engines to find profiles on social networks and details by typing a phone number in the search bar.
Now, here is how to find a person on Facebook by phone number:
- Visit the Google search engine
- Copy and paste the next search parameter and replace the number with the correct one.
- allintext: “1234567890” site:facebook.com
The above filters tell Google that we need to find a specific phone number on Facebook, and we’re only interested in locating that information on the text of the pages, which should make the search faster.
After that, have a look at the search pages and see if there’s any profile on Facebook that has that exact phone number. Otherwise, ensure that you add the country code “+1” or “001” if the user is located in the United States. The reason for that is that some people may add the full cell number for international callers.
The limitation of getting someone’s Facebook account from his or her contact number is that Google only shows the indexed details. That means if the Facebook user has updated or removed that phone number from the page, Google might remove that data from its index fast.
Another disadvantage of using Google for this search is that the phone number might have been used in the past by another person on FB. As a result, searching for that number on Google might show you an old account of someone else and not your friend or partner.
DuckDuckGo
This search engine uses a different approach to index information about social media users and websites. It scans social networks like Facebook through its own algorithm. Then, it combines the data with others from hundreds of sources online.
That should enhance the search database, and DuckDuckGo may show you other details that are unavailable to Google. That’s why I recommend using this search engine for this type of search.
Bing and Yahoo
Bing powers the search of Yahoo and other search engines worldwide. So, start searching for anyone’s phone number through Bing, and you may get their Facebook account. Bing lists some of its search operators to exclude words or limit the search to a specific country, language, etc…
3. Facebook Search
Here’s how to use phone numbers to find someone on Facebook easily. However, there’s a condition for that, which is that the user is not blocking search engines from detecting that contact information.
Keep in mind that when you search the Facebook site or app by phone number, you only get a general list of results that needs to be filtered. There could be posts, profiles, and even photos with that number appearing in the ID of that file or the URL, which makes no sense in most cases. The Facebook internal search engine is not as smart as Google or other solutions.
Therefore, you need to choose “people” from the list of suggestions, based on the number you searched for. That said, the process of typing a phone number into the Facebook search box may not be as useful as most people expect.
Facebook’s internally built search algorithm has nothing to do with what a real search engine like Google and others do. I tried their search a couple of times, and rarely, I found a result that shows the Facebook profile behind a phone number. So, use this as a method that may, or may not work for most users on Facebook.
Conclusion
To successfully find someone on Facebook with their phone number, always start with the smartest search option you choose. Going through hundreds of pages with regular search engines may complicate things and not help.
On the other hand, people search engines have their own techniques to collect data from various sources, including public records, and that saves time. If you want to recommend another method for locating people on the Facebook app by number only, add it in the following comment section and let others know about it.
