Looking for a free, real method of watching somebody’s Facebook story without them knowing? You’re at the right place!
I am here to share a few methods that you have on hand – all of them easy to use. So let’s check them all out below so you can easily watch others’ Facebook stories anonimously!
1. Turn on Airplane Mode
This is my favorite method – and by far the easiest and most lucrative. And it works flawlessly each time!
Here is what you need to do (and why this works):
- First, launch the Facebook app on your mobile phone and swipe through the stories, making sure that the one(s) you want to watch anonymously appears there.
- Next, put your phone in Airplane mode and watch any story you’re interested in watching.
- IMPORTANT! After watching the story or stories, make sure to force quit Facebook before turning off Airplane mode (so quit the app and swipe it away from your Phone’s cache).
Why does this work? Because your phone is no longer connected to the internet when you are on Airplane mode, but Facebook preloads the stories for easier access.
So you can watch them without the other person knowing because Facebook themselves won’t know you watched the story. This is the easiest and best method to use!
Related reading: Here’s why I decided to delete my Facebook account!
2. The Partial Swipe
If you don’t want to go through the trouble of activating airplane mode on your device, the Partial Swipe will work on your phone. Here’s what you need to do:
- Launch the Facebook app and watch the story to the left or right of the story you’re interested in checking out.
- Then swipe left or right, so that the Facebook story you want to see anonymously appears on the screen, but don’t lift your finger.
- This way, you can see most of the image of that respective story and the person won’t know you did.
The problem with this method is that it only works with photos and not videos (also, it won’t let you see multiple photos if they are posted). But if it’s just one image – then you can see most of it using this method.
3. The Ask a Friend Method
While I still believe that the Airplane method I have shared above is the only one that you should use… this one also works great, especially if you have a good friend you can ask a favor.
If they also are friends with the person whose Facebook story you want to watch anonymously, and they don’t mind the other person knowing they watched it, you can simply ask to borrow their phone and watch the story.
It’s stupid simple, but sometimes the easiest methods are the best (and we won’t always think about these potential solutions).
Looking for an alternative? I have compared Kik and Snapchat in a previous article – make sure to check it out!
4. Deactivate your account
This is not the easiest thing to do, but if you really want to see somebody’s FB story without them knowing and the airplane methods is not working (for example, if they uploaded multiple videos), you can use this method instead.
Here is what you need to do:
Launch your Facebook app (or visit Facebook on your laptop) and watch the story you want to see.
Then, immediately after watching it, tap your profile icon in the upper right corner, then tap the cogwheel icon in the upper right corner and finally tap “See more in Accounts Center”
In the new window, click on “Personal Details” and then “Account Ownership and Verfication”.
Finally, click on “Deactivation or deletion,” select your profile again, check the “Deactivate account” option and hit “Continue”:
This will deactivate your Facebook account, meaning that the people whose stories you have watched will not see that you watched their story.
You can log in to Facebook 24 hours after watching the story, because by then the story will have been deleted from Facebook and so they will never know you’ve watched it.
The downside to this is that you won’t be able to use your account for 24 hours. It’s also a bit complicated, since more steps are required, so I recommend going through the steps once or twice before attempting it, to make sure you know where the buttons are and you know what you have to do.
As you can see, this method is very complicated and comes with major downsides – so only use it if the other methods above are not enough.
Wrapping up
The Airplane mode method remains the best and easiest one for those who want to watch someone’s Facebook story anonymously, but it’s good to know that you have other options too.
If you have a different method that works just as well, let us all know by sharing your comments below.
Or, if you want to learn more about Facebook, you can check out my previous article sharing how to see who’s viewed your Facebook profile.