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Facebook has updated where it hides your secret messages. Check out The NEW Place Facebook Is Hiding Your Secret Messages to learn where to find them now.
Shh…You have secret messages waiting for you on Facebook. In fact, you might have dozens of secret messages that you never even knew existed. If anyone has ever told you that she sent a Facebook message to you but you never received it, then you probably have never discovered where Facebook is hiding your secret messages.
A recent article on Slate told the tale of a writer who left her laptop in a New York cab. The next passenger discovered the laptop and tried to return it to her by contacting her via a Facebook message. Unfortunately, the message wasn’t discovered until weeks later, after she had already purchased a replacement laptop. Furious at Facebook Again!
If you don’t know about Facebook’s Other Messages, you probably have unread messages that you didn’t know existed. Other messages are from people who send you messages but Facebook doesn’t consider them to be important. It’s as if Facebook is making an “A” List and “B” List for people who send you messages. Other Messages are from people on Facebook’s B List for you. These messages can include friends who are your Facebook friends but who don’t send you messages often, people who send you a message with a Facebook friend request, people who aren’t connected to you on Facebook, and messages from Fan Pages.
To see your hidden messages, go to your Facebook home page and click Messages in the left column.
After you click Messages, you will be taken to a new screen where you can access your Other Messages, the double super-secret hidden messages that you probably never knew were there.
Click on Other to see what you’ve been missing. If you didn’t know about these before, you’ll probably be quite surprised to see some friends whom you have been innocently, but rudely, ignoring. You also might discover solicitations from people you don’t know and messages from fan pages you have Liked.
In my Other Messages, I discovered messages from quite a few friends, as well as messages from Facebook pages I wish I had seen. I also saw some solicitations that gave me a small appreciation for Facebook’s filter.
So make sure you don’t miss out on your Other Messages on Facebook. Check them often to be certain you know who is reaching out to you. And if you’re sending a message to someone via Facebook, don’t be offended if they don’t reply. Chances are pretty good they may not discover your message for a while!
Did you know that Facebook Other Messages existed? Have you been missing important messages? Let us know in the Comments section below!
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Dear Amelia, Hayley, Stephanie, Kaarina, Claire, Carol, Christine, Kimberly and others,
Please forgive my rudeness in not responding to your Facebook message sooner. I was clueless about where to find it.
I hope you find it in your heart to forgive me someday.
Your friend,
* Facebook image by Andrew Mager
** Crackerjack image by Dr. Wendy Longo
Wow that’s a questionable design feature!
Riley
Hi Riley, You’re right. I was very surprised and not happy when I saw all of the messages I had missed.
Perhaps in the new Facebook design they will make Other Messages more noticeable.
Sadly, I found my secret messages easily. After reading them, I felt like I needed to take a bath.
Warning: Don’t expect to find you’re the recipient of love, adoration and cash from people you’d actually WANT any of those things from when you open your secret messages.
Hi Kathy, I found just a few solicitations (though I was very glad to have missed them) and many messages from friends I wished I had received.
Did you discover any messages from friends you wished you had seen?
Informative post Carolyn!
This is something that I also noticed after very long, not knowing that was a niche named ‘other’ hidden within messages! Of course when I did learn about it, I do check it up quite frequently.
Surprisingly, beside the people sending friend requests and others trying to convey things to you, some of my friends messages had also gone in this niche. I never knew about it till very late.
Thanks for sharing it with everyone, as I think those who don’t know about it, would surely go right away and check it up. 🙂
Hi Harleena, I just spoke with a new Wonder of Tech reader who, after reading this post, discovered a six month old message from an ex-girlfriend who was trying to find him on Facebook and emailed him to make sure it was his account. He was grateful that he finally discovered the message but very upset he hadn’t seen it until today.
Even if you do know about this feature, it’s helpful to have reminders to check Other Messages on Facebook every so often.
That is truly amazing Carolyn! To have discovered an old flame through the ‘other’ message niche must have really been exciting for him, though sad that he lost so much of time. And all this is thanks to your informative post Carolyn, as I see many people did not know about this feature. 🙂
Hi Harleena, Yes, it’s sad in a way, but perhaps the timing is perfect, who knows? Sometimes timing was just “meant to be,” if you know what I mean. 😉
Hey Carolyn,
Yeah, I noticed that some time back. The only messages I seem to get in the “other” folder are emails from pages and dating requests. Strange combination so I’m never too worried if I don’t look at them quickly.
Don’t know why the heck they did that. Message are messages right! I mean if they are considering those spam then that’s not right. The dating ones for me, absolutely. But the messages from fan pages, not at all. I signed up for them so what’s up with that!
Oh well, yet another thing with Facebook we’ll probably never figure out.
Thanks for sharing, I have a feeling you aren’t the only one who had a hard time finding it.
Have a great week!
~Adrienne
Hi Adrienne, As you can see by my reply to Harleena, romantic possibilities can be tucked away in Other Messages, though I don’t recommend responding to date requests from strangers. Long lost loves are another matter. Some you may be thrilled to hear from, others are best left forgotten.
Even if Facebook wants to filter messages, they should at least make the filter more obvious so that people can easily discover their B List messages.
You’re right, Adrienne, we can only wonder why Facebook set up Other Messages this way!
Wow – who knew? There were indeed a few messages I would have liked to know about. I had absolutely no idea – thanks so much Carolyn for bringing this to our attention!
Hi Ruth, You’re welcome! It’s a wonder Facebook made these so difficult to find. I hope that the messages you found contained good news. 🙂
Just few days back, I said elsewhere, :
“Plato said, ‘Writing would kill memory’, in 20th century, they said, TV will kill radio, movies, now Zuckerberg says, he’s about to kill email.”
I have seen the FB message is becoming my default inbox, slowly. My email is for the other (read junk, subscriptions, etc.) inbox. Because the people that matter are on FB. There are times, I go without checking my mail inbox, but hardly any day without checking FB inbox.
Sometime back, FB made everyone grab an Facebook.com email addr (and there were rumors about FB is working on Gmail killer). Though Gmail killing never happened, but FB certainly got email addresses for most. If you send yourself an email to that email addr, it goes to your secret ‘other’ messages. Its all sign that, FB is working ‘secretly’ on a real GMail killer.
The way they are taking marketshare and mindshre of Google in many ways, I won’t be surprised if the killing is for real some day!
Hi iRewardChart, Excellent point. People don’t seem to be giving out their Facebook email addresses, but are getting messages through Facebook anyway, regardless of not giving out their Facebook email address.
It can become confusing, though, when you remember that someone has sent you a message and you have to check whether it was on email or through Facebook.
My daughters rarely check email but are on Facebook all the time.
Will Facebook kill Gmail? Will Google+ kill Facebook and bring Gmail back? Interesting times…
Hey Carolyn!
Thanks for that. I read my “other messages”, but it hadn’t occurred to me that my clients may not be reading theirs. I’ll make sure to mention it to them. Sometimes I forget about all of the things that I know, that others don’t know, since I’m in the fray all day every day. That one certainly slipped by under the radar… good catch!
Hi Laura, You’re right, it’s hard to know what others don’t know. I have heard from quite a few people who had no idea that Other Messages existed. Even though some people know about it, they have found it helpful to be reminded. 🙂
Hi, Carolyn
I’m one of the people who didn’t know about the Other option under Messages in Facebook. I really appreciate you sharing it so I won’t accidentally miss out on important messages. Oh, that poor writer! Just imagine if she never found that Other box.
Thanks for the helpful tip!!
Hope you have a great rest of the day.
Allyson
Hi Allyson, I’m hearing from a lot of people, including quite a few on Twitter, that didn’t know and are discovering all kinds of messages. One guy discovered 92 Other Messages he had no idea were there.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who didn’t know this, but I didn’t realize how widespread the ignorance about this feature was. I hope Facebook include fixing this in their re-design!
Good work, Carolyn!
Once I saw this I rushed to the messages to see if the girl I was trying hook up with last year had sent me any secret messages..!
It turns out she actually *was* ignoring me. Aw, shucks…romantic aspirations crushed yet again.
Aside from that I found some messages from people that I didn’t know but that I wish I could have responded to at the time. I mean, I still could but it’s kind of embarrassing.
Curse you, Facebook! lol
Hi John, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I’m sorry to have gotten your hopes up, only to dash them.
You’re right, it can be embarrassing to discover old unread messages. No worries, just send them a link to this post and all should be forgiven! :-bd
Hi Carolyn,
Again: so glad for your advice, I knew about FB’s hidden posts but ever so often wondered why I never received a reply to a message of mine, some weeks I had written to a friend with whom I rarely correspond on FB requesting a favour – no reply, it is clear now why!
No cursing FB, maybe we should resort to the old fashioned letter writing and postal services (ah, another subject for an article!).
Thank you, Barbara
Hi Barbara, You’re right, good old fashioned letter writing is a treasure, but some of those letters went undelivered as well.
The important thing is to not take offense when someone doesn’t reply to your Facebook message. There’s quite a good chance she never received it! 🙂
OMG!!! Carolyn , thank you so much. I kept a poor reader of my blog waiting for me to accept the facebook request since June this year. Only after I read this post, I went to others and the message was lying there.
Once I sent a message to a person and he said he did not receive it , now I know why.
Most of the messages were spam but I feel sorry for the person whose message I did not read for 6 months .
This is a real important piece of info. I am sharing it as usual 🙂
Hi Ashvini, I’m so glad you were able to find the Facebook message from your reader. Although the spam is annoying, Other Messages can also contain some hidden treasures. I’m finding a lot of people didn’t know about this and most (not all) are delighted to discover their Other Messages.
Thanks so much for sharing this article, Ashvini! (*)
HI Carolyn,
I didn’t know they existed. But most of them either weren’t important or from facebook pages that I joined at some point. I think facebook has done good job making A and B lists of massages.
Hi Faran, You’re right, there is certainly value in Facebook separating out unwanted messages, but they shouldn’t hide them where people can’t find them. I go through my Spam box in email every so often to make sure that mail I want to see hasn’t been diverted there. Usually I discover at least one email I was glad I didn’t miss there.
Hi Carolyn,
This is new to me. Just checked my other messages folder and there was not anything too important in there, but good to know that they do filter, so will check from time to time.
Hi Cathy, I’m glad you haven’t been missing out on anything too important. It’s an interesting issue. Do you wish there were some fantastic message in Facebook that you’ve been missing or were you relieved that there was nothing too important you didn’t see? I’m still having a think about that! 😕
I wonder how many secret messages I have… this is very useful. Thanks for this!
Carolyn, your so clever!
Hi Ryan, I’m so glad you found this useful! Do stop back and let us know how useful this post was. I’m finding it very interesting to learn who found what in their Other Messages on Facebook! 😕
I actually knew about it. It is one of many “features” that Facebook has “introduced” as part of the billion changes they seem to make every week. Quite irritating.
Hello Jack, I agree, this feature is very irritating, but I don’t think it’s recent. I found a message dating from October 8, 2008, before the last US presidential election. At least now I have a blog post to point to in case anyone is terribly upset with me for not returning their messages! :-??
Hi Carolyn
I’d never noticed this before, just checked it out, I had one message from a friend for an event and hundreds of solicitations. I also notice that I don’t get an email verification when someone sends me a message anymore. Initially when this happened I missed the fact there were several messages in my inbox for at least a month, not sure if I messed with any settings though.
Hi Beth, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! That’s a setting that Facebook changed recently. People were complaining that their inbox was being flooded with messages from Facebook, so Facebook decided to change people’s preferences on email notifications from Facebook.
To make sure you get notifications, go to Settings => Notifications => Email Frequency and uncheck the box that says “Send me important updates and summary emails instead of individual notification emails.”
As frustrating as Facebook can be, I try to keep in mind that it’s a free service! 🙂
Thanks for stopping by and leaving an awesome comment, Beth!
When I had discovered this some time back I was just so annoyed with Facebook – if it were a person I would have slapped ’em. Ha ha. Seriously, this was so frustrating because I missed out on one or two very important things. They should have at least pointed this out when they ‘updated’ the new look and informed the media who would have included this crucial detail in their write-ups.
It was very depressing but I am now over it and check my ‘other’ messages frequently
Hi Gabriella, You’re right, this format is very frustrating, but I don’t think it’s a new invention of Facebook. I found messages dating back to 2008 in my Other Messages folder.
Maybe the new format will make Other Messages more apparent?
Carolyn, Do the messages that you have are from facebook friends? or from facebook pages?
I guess the “other” section has messages from ” Facebook pages” and not from our facebook friends.
please let me know so i can update my information.
Thanks for sharing.
Hi Faissal, My Other Messages contained messages from Facebook friends I don’t interact with often (but important to me anyway!), friends I hadn’t yet connected with on Facebook, strangers with solicitations (happy to miss those!) and Facebook pages.
I hope this helps!
I’m really surprised by this *_* I mean this is really stupid mistake by facebook to determine who is important and who is not :@ from our facebook friends.
thanks for sharing this with us 😉
Yes, I think Facebook would have received a lot of complaints about this hidden feature, except few people even knew about it! Very frustrating though.
Oh, wow! I did not know about this! Holy cow! I have missed 2 secret messages…, outdated and the content deleted of course. So I’ll never know what exactly I have missed! 🙂
Hi Anna, I’m sorry your messages were deleted. I had one dating back to 2008! Perhaps you could contact the senders and explain the situation so they could let you know what you missed (if they remember!).
Wow, I had no idea about this.
Thank you for informing me,
I just saw a whole bunch of messages I never knew I had been sent.
Also – a friend said they had never received a message I sent them, apparently they found it there.
You are a lifesaver 🙂
Hi Rochelle, It warms my heart to hear that, thank you. It’s very easy to miss important messages on Facebook, but hopefully we can find them now!
Thanks so much for stopping by Rochelle and sharing that with us! 🙂
Wow! Thanks for sharing this. I never knew about this Facebook feature. Several weeks ago a friend asked me why I never responded back to her e-mail message, and now I know why. I just check my “other” and found quite a few messages sitting there. I learn something new once again from the Wonder Of Tech.
Hi Carol, I’m so glad you learned from this post, though I’m sorry you missed your messages on Facebook! At least you have a good excuse why you didn’t respond to your friend. 🙂
Nice find Carolyn. I wasnt aware of this “Other” messages, never bothered much in fact 🙂
Hi Praveen, Thanks. Judging by the number of comments and tweets on this post, I would say plenty of people had no idea about Other Messages. Very few had any idea they even existed! 🙂
I read about this at Erika’s and low and behold I had quite a few in there. However, some were from women (allegedly) wanting something more than friendship….I only kept 3 of those messages……:).
Interesting indeed.
This happened to me actually. A really close friend who was not on my friends list sent a message to get back in touch with me. I didnt see it for two months! I was mad, and so was my friend!
Hi Pete, I’m so sorry that happened to you. I’m glad you and your friend were able to connect eventually. You’re right, it’s downright aggravating that happened, but you know you’re not the only ones that happened to!
Whoa! I never knew this! This is such an important post, I am glad that I dropped down here.You wont believe I still haven’t been able to retrieve my other messages, facebook is taking ages to load them! Not sure if at all I will be able to see them.Also there is another thing which I would like to mention here : there are 15 messages which is shown as unread whereas I have read all my messages, not sure if this is bug.
Hi Arnab, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! Wow, I hope you don’t have hundreds of missing messages you wish you had seen! At least you know about Facebook’s Other Messages now so you can check it regularly.
I haven’t heard of people having problems with read messages showing as unread, but I’d rather have that issue than hidden Other Messages.
Thanks for stopping by the blog. I hope to see you here again soon! 🙂
Thanks for this post. It’s good to know, but it’s discouraging to realize how many messages I have missed simply because I did not think to explore Facebook more. It’s amazing how the company is able to control (deliberately or innocently) communication between individuals. Imagine if the USPS did the same thing. It would be a great First Amendment battle. It’s almost as if Facebook is becoming a new public utility. Do you think the company recognizes this?
Hi David, You make an excellent point. If the US Postal Service delivered mail it deemed to be unimportant into a separate mailbox that wasn’t obvious, there would be uproar, if not government intervention.
Facebook does want to replace email, so my guess is that they didn’t try to obscure the Other Messages. But Facebook would serve its users well either to amass messages in one place or to make Other Message much more obvious.
I don’t use Facebook a lot, so this is the first time I’ve heard of something like this. My first thought is that this is fairly stupid, but then, maybe not. The reason I’m saying that it might not be such a stupid thing is that when it comes to Twitter, I can hardly find my important direct messages because of all the spam. If Twitter had done something similar, I would probably have used direct messages a lot more. On the other hand, I would probably never see the messages from other people (it would be just a spam folder).
Thanks a lot for sharing this. I’ll have to take a look at my other Facebook messages 🙂
Hi Jens, I think there are two issues with how Facebook has handled this issue. First is it deciding which messages were important and which were not. From the comments on this post, Facebook got its priorities wrong quite often. Just because someone isn’t your friend yet doesn’t mean their message isn’t important.
Second, Facebook erred by not making the Other Messages folder obvious. You can’t get to it from the Home page directly so people either don’t notice it or forget to check it.
I agree, I don’t like Twitter spam direct messages. But I still check them every so often because I know they are there. I even check my email spam message folder to make sure I don’t miss a message that was sent there inadvertently.
Let us know if you missed any important messages on Facebook, Jens!
I recently realised I had a message from a guy I liked that went straight to my “other messages” -presumably because we didn’t have many facebook connections. I had absolutely no idea about the message. I have since replied to it, but received no reply in return. The same has happened with another message from someone else. Do you think there is a possibility that the response goes to their “other messages” too?
Hi Victoria, Yes, that’s exactly what happens. Your message is possibly in their “Other Messages” folders. The main thing is not to take offense at not receiving a reply to your messages. If you’re Facebook friends with them, post on their wall that you left them a message. If they can’t find it, you can give them a link to this article showing them how to find Other Messages. I really hope Facebook makes it easier to find these messages!
Thanks for this awesome post. All the information you have given is great.