Four easy ways to tell if you’ve been blocked on Facebook
Facebook can sometimes feel like the world’s best reunion party. You run into people you haven’t seen in a long time, share favourite throwback photos, and heart one another’s most uplifting memes.
Other times it can feel like a battlefield. Conflicts of interest can send tensions high, with arguments about to erupt at every turn.
You’ve probably blocked (or at least “snoozed for 30 days”) someone you disagree with, so it’s equally likely that at least one “friend” has you blocked.
Here’s how to tell if someone has blocked you on Facebook.
Method 1: Scroll through your friend list
You can tell if someone blocked you on Facebook by scrolling your friend list. Social media professional Chad R. MacDonald manages Facebook pages with tens of thousands of followers and is highly experienced with handling Facebook privacy. MacDonald tells us that deactivated accounts’ profiles and profile photos “will still be visible on your friends list, although you can’t click on them anymore. Someone who has blocked you won’t show up at all.”
Method 2: Search for their Facebook profile
If you’ve recently gotten into a Facebook kerfuffle with your great-aunt Nora, you might want to check if things are still okay between the two of you. Do a general search for her name in the Facebook search results bar at the top of the page. If Auntie Nora shows up as a friend, you’re still on good terms, and there’s no need to worry.
However, if the widget on her search result reads “Add friend,” this means that she has unfriended or blocked you. A simple unfriend is less worrisome than a block, and you can take it as a sign that there’s room for the two of you to rebuild your relationship. If you’re still able to see her public posts, you have not been blocked.
If they don’t show up in search results…
If the person doesn’t show up in search results at all, the user has either deleted their profile or has blocked you. And let’s be frank, if the two of you were arguing it’s more likely to be the latter. To double-check, ask a mutual friend to search the person’s name in their Facebook search bar. If the person shows up in their results but not yours, you have some relationship mending to do.
“If the search yields a result with an active page, it’s clear that you’ve gotten the chop,” says Krystin Dunbar, Senior Campaign Strategist at digital agency Union. But Dunbar cautions this could also mean the person has just changed their privacy settings. “Privacy settings can be changed so that accounts don’t show up in a [Facebook] member search – so this isn’t a foolproof method.”
Method 3: Check your Facebook memories
The “Memories” feature, which shows you old posts, “including everyone who has commented on or liked them,” says MacDonald, is another place to check.
“People who have blocked you can still show up on your posts in Memories,” he explains. “Their profiles will show their names in black font that you can’t click on, as opposed to the normal blue font for profiles that you can click through.”
A very long scroll through your news feed may serve the same purpose. Or a much faster way would be to simply use this app to see who unfollowed you on Facebook.
Method 4: Check your Facebook groups
A final method is to check your mutual groups. If you are an administrator on a Facebook group, such as a town or school community page, “you can see all profiles that interact there, whether they’ve blocked you or not,” says MacDonald.
In these groups, you will be able to view the posts of all users, even if you are not friends on Facebook, and here again any profiles with their names in bold, black font indicate that “the user has blocked you (or you have blocked them) and you won’t be able to view those profiles.”
How to tell if someone blocked you on Facebook Messenger
It is possible for someone to block you from messaging them on Facebook Messenger even if they haven’t blocked your profile on Facebook, and this would indicate they are unwilling to be more than just a social media acquaintance.
To check if someone has blocked you on Facebook Messenger, try sending a message to their profile. If you get an error message that reads “This person isn’t available at the moment,” then the person has either blocked you or deactivated their account.
Written by Dani Walpole. This article first appeared on Reader’s Digest. For more of what you love from the world’s best-loved magazine, here’s our best subscription offer.