How to Get Back into Your Facebook Account with the Help of Your Friends

Account recovery can be troublesome, especially if the user has no access to his recovery email or telephone. However, Facebook came up with a smart idea of recovering one's account with the help from the user's selected friends. If you did not know about this feature, you should navigate to your profile settings and create your own list of Facebook trusted contacts right away; otherwise, you will not be able to use this option in case of an emergency. No need to worry if you do not know how to set up trusted contacts for your Facebook account or how to ask their assistance if you need to recover your profile as we will explain it all in this blog post.

How to set up trusted contacts?

Getting locked out of one's account is not a fun experience, and there are a lot of scenarios of how it could happen. Thus, it is vital to be prepared for it so you would not have to panic or create a new account when something goes wrong. For starters, go to your Security and Login settings and slide down until you see an option called 'Choose 3 to 5 friends to contact if you get locked out'. Then select 'Choose Trusted Contacts' and enter your password as requested for safety reasons. Use the search box or pick friends you want to be your Facebook trusted contacts from the provided list and press the Save button to enable this feature. Here are the condensed instructions:

1. Access the Security and Login settings.
2. Scroll below and pick Choose 3 to 5 friends to contact if you get locked out.
3. Enter your password.
4. Select up to 5 friends who could help you recover the account.
5. Press Save.

No doubt, asking a person for help to restore your account if you have not spoken with him for years or ended your relationship on bad terms could be awkward. This is why the friends you choose must be the people you can always count on. In other words, as much as you like your new friends, it would be safer to pick from family members or best friends. Of course, you can always edit your Facebook trusted contacts lists, but same as with recovery emails or phones, you might forget about it until the moment you get locked out of your account.

How to recover the account with the help of your Facebook trusted contacts?

In case you cannot access your recovery email or phone, the only other way to log in to your account might be getting the safety codes from the trusted contacts you chose earlier. All you have to do is click on the Forgot account link available on the Facebook.com login page. Look for your account by entering information related to it, for example, the email address used when you registered, username, phone number, or full name.

Then, you should review the list of recovery contacts and if you cannot access any of those the only option is to click on No longer have access to these? The website should ask you to submit new recovery contact information, and if you press Continue, you should see an option called Reveal My Trusted Contacts. After doing this, you should see a unique URL link. Trusted friends who open it are supposed to see a recovery code that they should give to you. Naturally, for safety reasons Facebook's team encourages users to call their Facebook trusted contacts or even talk to them in person to ensure no one else would be able to intercept recovery codes in case the account was hacked.

Next, you should collect all recovery codes and enter them to access the locked account. Do not be surprised if you cannot access it just yet as there is an extra safety measure that requires users to wait for 24 hours. To learn more about Facebook recovery options we highly recommend reading the information provided on the website's Help Center.

How to avoid having to use the account’s recovery options?

Usually, users search for recovery options when they forget their passwords or when their accounts get hacked. A dedicated password manager application can help you avoid both these situations because such software not only remembers all passwords for you but also enables you to create complex random passcodes that would be difficult to hack. For example, Cyclonis Password Manager saves passwords on an encrypted vault placed on the user's chosen cloud storage or a device. It also has an easy to use password generator that allows creating complex random combinations from letters, numbers, and symbols. To view the passwords saved via the application the user has to enter a master password, so no one else besides you would be able to do so. Moreover, if you activate the auto login feature the program can log you in automatically after providing the master password, so instead of learning combinations of all your accounts, you would have to memorize a single passcode. For more information about our free tool, users should continue reading here.

To conclude, knowing how to set up trusted contacts is something all Facebook users should know as it could be their last option to access their accounts in case they forget their password or experience identity theft. Nevertheless, it is much safer to have more options, which is why we advise not to forget to update your recovery contacts from time to time. Not to mention, users should use both strong and unique passwords for their recovery emails and social media accounts to prevent hacking.