How to Find Your Facebook Friends’ Hidden Photos

Social media is not always the greatest; it does have some downsides and one of the biggest reasons is all of the pictures on Facebook that get published. Pictures are great to share on your status update by showing an evening with your family playing board games or showing off your new purchases, but what about those pictures that you don’t want people to see? Like, the ones of you doing a keg stand in college? Or the pictures of you before you lost 20 pounds? I am here to tell you that those pictures that you thought you hid can actually be brought back up. Before you thought that hiding these pictures from your timeline would keep your parents, other family members and potential employers from seeing them but that is not the case with this new application.

Have you seen these Hidden Features on Facebook? 

PictureMate is a new application that you can download from the Chrome Web Store and add it as an extension to your browser. The program says that it can pull up hidden photos of anyone on Facebook whether you are friends with them or not and it doesn’t cost a thing. It even claims to detect pictures that were not even uploaded by the user you are searching for.

PictureMate is misleading because with the Facebook privacy settings any picture that you choose to hide in your photo albums is actually hidden, but only if you change your privacy settings. PictureMate did however find a loophole and they are able to pull up pictures that you chose not to be displayed on your timeline. Think of the last time that someone tagged you in a picture that was unflattering or you just didn’t like on Facebook. You most likely selected “hide from timeline” once you were tagged in it, but most people don’t know those pictures are still available for people to see. If you don’t untag yourself from the picture or have it deleted, it may not appear on your Facebook wall, but it will still remain available for someone to view. The photo will still appear on the Facebook wall of the person who tagged you.

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If you want to remove yourself from a tagged picture on Facebook so no one can see that picture then follow these easy steps: First, select “hidden from timeline” from the drop down menu under the photo’s date. After that, select “Report/remove tag” from the next window that appears. Lastly, you need to select “remove tag” and then you will be removed from that picture for good. The other nice thing about removing a tag from a picture on Facebook is that no one else can tag you back in that photo. Once you have removed it, it’s removed for good.

While you have learned how to save yourself from PictureMate, it’s a good idea to check the privacy settings on your Facebook page to make sure that your personal information isn’t being shared. Content uploaded to social media platforms is not always secure and shouldn’t be made public unless you are sure that’s where you want it to be (looking at you, Kim Kardashian!)

Have you tried removing tags from Facebook but they are still appearing? Let me know what you had to do to get them removed!

Maren Hogan

Maren Hogan is CEO of Red Branch and general Bad@$$

Maren Hogan is a seasoned marketer and community builder in the HR and Recruiting industry. Maren started Red Branch Media and, before she hired all the smiling faces you see below, she ran it on her own. In marketing for over 15 years, she has deep experience in strategic campaigns and a long-term, results-based operational approach.