How to Use the Facebook Friend Finder

By Carolyn Abram from Facebook For Dummies, 4th Edition

The Facebook Friend Finder is very useful when you’re just getting started on Facebook because it allows you to find a whole bunch of friends all at once. If you had to look for each of your friends by name, it could take a while. The Friend Finder allows you to speed that process up.

You first see the Friend Finder after you sign up for Facebook. Without friends, Facebook can feel a little bit like going to an amusement park alone. Sure, the rides were fun, and the food was greasy, but no one was there to appreciate it with you.

The Friend Finder works by allowing Facebook access to your e-mail account. Facebook then combs through your e-mail contacts and matches the e-mails it finds with e-mails attached to the Facebook accounts of the people you e-mail. So if Joe Smith, your friend, e-mailed you from jsmith@email.com, and also had a Facebook account he created with that e-mail address, the Friend Finder presents you with Joe’s Facebook Profile and ask if you want to be friends on Facebook.

To use the Friend Finder, follow these steps:

Select the e-mail provider you are using.

This may be Windows Live Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo!, or another e-mail client. Facebook automatically selects a provider based on the e-mail you used to register.
Enter your e-mail address and e-mail password.

Remember to enter your e-mail password, not the password you just created for Facebook.
Click Find Friends.

Behind the scenes, Facebook searches your contact list and presents you with the people in your e-mail contact list who are already on Facebook. By default, all of these people are selected to be your friends.
Look through the list and choose the people you want to be friends with on Facebook.

Look for people you are friends with or related to in real life. You can deselect the people you don’t want to add by clicking on their face or in the check box.
Click Add as Friends.

This sends Friend Requests to all the people you’ve selected in Step 4. On Facebook, all friendships have to be agreed to by both people. A request to your friend needs to be approved by them before you are officially Facebook friends.

After you’ve added friends, Facebook looks at the e-mail addresses it didn’t find matches for and ask you if you want to invite those people to join Facebook.
Select people you want to invite to join Facebook.

Much like selecting friends to add, you can select and deselect friends’ e-mail addresses by clicking the check box next to their e-mails.

If you don’t want to invite anyone to join Facebook just yet, look on the bottom right of the screen for a Skip link. It’s right next to the Send Invites button.
Click Send Invites to send out invitations to your friends via e-mail.

They’ll receive e-mails from Facebook letting them know you invited them to join.