Facebook is hiding your messages from you, ZDNet
Facebook is hiding your messages from you
Facebook has a hidden Other Messages folder! You should most likely go check yours and see what’s waiting for you inwards, just in case it’s something significant that Facebook shouldn’t have put there.
Head over to Facebook right now. How many unread private messages do you have in your Messages folder? You’ll either reply 0, or however many the little number crimson number at the top says you have. Guess what? Chances are you have many, many more messages waiting for you.
Open up the Messages folder. Yes, if you haven’t already clicked on it, do so now. Now, look over at the left-hand Favorites menu. What’s that under the Messages option? There’s another folder, slightly indented, labeled as Other. Click on it. There you go, now you’re in the hidden folder, called Other Messages.
This Other option only emerges when you’re already in Messages. That’s why nobody ever sees it: once they click on Messages, they only ever look at the middle of the screen. There’s no visible way to access Other Messages from anywhere else on Facebook. The only other way to get here is to directly go to facebook.com/messages/other/.
When I look through this folder, I mainly see mass messages sent to myself and other invitees of various Facebook Events and members of numerous Facebook Groups. The rest comprise of spam messages, like the demonstrable one you can see in the screenshot above (thanks Addison, I think I’m exceptional as well).
When I pointed out this folder to my friends a while back, however, many said that it included items that should not be in there. In other words, they’re not spam and they’re not mass messages. A few even got indeed annoyed that Facebook classified some of them incorrectly because they missed significant information.
If you want to stir a message from one folder to the other, you have to open the item in question, and choose the corresponding option from the Deeds menu at the top. Alternatively, if you react to any item in the Other Messages folder, the conversation is moved to your main Messages folder. That’s rather intuitive, unlike the location of the Other Messages folder.
So, when did Facebook add Other Messages? It happened way back in November 2010. That’s right: most people have been unaware of this folder for over a year. You may of course have messages in this folder sent before November 2010, because Facebook automatically moved them there from your inbox when it created the folder. What goes after is how Facebook described its decision to add it.
"It seems wrong that an email message from your best friend gets sandwiched inbetween a bill and a bank statement," a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement. "It’s not that those other messages aren’t significant, but one of them is more meaningful. With fresh Messages, your Inbox will only contain messages from your friends and their friends. All other messages will go into an Other folder where you can look at them separately. If someone you know isn’t on Facebook, that person’s email will originally go into the Other folder. You can lightly budge that conversation into the Inbox, and all the future conversations with that friend will showcase up there. You can also switch your account settings to be even more limited and bounce any emails that aren’t exclusively from friends."
In brief, messages only show up in the main inbox if they’re from friends or friends-of-friends, and if they aren’t sent to mailing lists or broad distribution groups. Albeit Other Messages is supposed to work as a junk/spam folder on Facebook, it’s not working flawlessly for everyone. I have no problem with such a folder existing: even my friends who say they missed an significant message admit that most of their messages in there are not worth their time.
That’s not the problem here tho’. I don’t believe Facebook should liquidate this folder, but I do think they need to make it more visible. I would wager that ninety nine percent of Facebook’s eight hundred million monthly active users are fully unaware of its existence.
Facebook likely won’t commence displaying notifications for Other Messages, but I do hope they make it more evident. Until then, it thus seems the best way to make sure you don’t miss anything is to check the Other Messages folder on a regular basis, just like you should for your Junk/Spam folder in your e-mail account.
I very first witnessed talk of Other Messages showcase up on TNW last month, but it has resurfaced again this week at RedheadWriting and Slate. Since the switch was made over a year ago, I’m sure others have written about it before these two publications. If you’d like to be added to the list, comment below or contact me directly and I’ll see that your article is included.
Facebook is hiding your messages from you, ZDNet
Facebook is hiding your messages from you
Facebook has a hidden Other Messages folder! You should very likely go check yours and see what’s waiting for you inwards, just in case it’s something significant that Facebook shouldn’t have put there.
Head over to Facebook right now. How many unread private messages do you have in your Messages folder? You’ll either reply 0, or however many the little number crimson number at the top says you have. Guess what? Chances are you have many, many more messages waiting for you.
Open up the Messages folder. Yes, if you haven’t already clicked on it, do so now. Now, look over at the left-hand Favorites menu. What’s that under the Messages option? There’s another folder, slightly indented, labeled as Other. Click on it. There you go, now you’re in the hidden folder, called Other Messages.
This Other option only shows up when you’re already in Messages. That’s why nobody ever sees it: once they click on Messages, they only ever look at the middle of the screen. There’s no visible way to access Other Messages from anywhere else on Facebook. The only other way to get here is to directly go to facebook.com/messages/other/.
When I look through this folder, I mainly see mass messages sent to myself and other invitees of various Facebook Events and members of numerous Facebook Groups. The rest comprise of spam messages, like the evident one you can see in the screenshot above (thanks Addison, I think I’m amazing as well).
When I pointed out this folder to my friends a while back, however, many said that it included items that should not be in there. In other words, they’re not spam and they’re not mass messages. A few even got truly annoyed that Facebook classified some of them incorrectly because they missed significant information.
If you want to stir a message from one folder to the other, you have to open the item in question, and choose the corresponding option from the Deeds menu at the top. Alternatively, if you react to any item in the Other Messages folder, the conversation is moved to your main Messages folder. That’s rather intuitive, unlike the location of the Other Messages folder.
So, when did Facebook add Other Messages? It happened way back in November 2010. That’s right: most people have been unaware of this folder for over a year. You may of course have messages in this folder sent before November 2010, because Facebook automatically moved them there from your inbox when it created the folder. What goes after is how Facebook described its decision to add it.
"It seems wrong that an email message from your best friend gets sandwiched inbetween a bill and a bank statement," a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement. "It’s not that those other messages aren’t significant, but one of them is more meaningful. With fresh Messages, your Inbox will only contain messages from your friends and their friends. All other messages will go into an Other folder where you can look at them separately. If someone you know isn’t on Facebook, that person’s email will primarily go into the Other folder. You can lightly budge that conversation into the Inbox, and all the future conversations with that friend will showcase up there. You can also switch your account settings to be even more limited and bounce any emails that aren’t exclusively from friends."
In brief, messages only show up in the main inbox if they’re from friends or friends-of-friends, and if they aren’t sent to mailing lists or broad distribution groups. Albeit Other Messages is supposed to work as a junk/spam folder on Facebook, it’s not working ideally for everyone. I have no problem with such a folder existing: even my friends who say they missed an significant message admit that most of their messages in there are not worth their time.
That’s not the problem here however. I don’t believe Facebook should liquidate this folder, but I do think they need to make it more visible. I would wager that ninety nine percent of Facebook’s eight hundred million monthly active users are downright unaware of its existence.
Facebook likely won’t commence displaying notifications for Other Messages, but I do hope they make it more evident. Until then, it thus seems the best way to make sure you don’t miss anything is to check the Other Messages folder on a regular basis, just like you should for your Junk/Spam folder in your e-mail account.
I very first spotted talk of Other Messages display up on TNW last month, but it has resurfaced again this week at RedheadWriting and Slate. Since the switch was made over a year ago, I’m sure others have written about it before these two publications. If you’d like to be added to the list, comment below or contact me directly and I’ll see that your article is included.
Facebook is hiding your messages from you, ZDNet
Facebook is hiding your messages from you
Facebook has a hidden Other Messages folder! You should very likely go check yours and see what’s waiting for you inwards, just in case it’s something significant that Facebook shouldn’t have put there.
Head over to Facebook right now. How many unread private messages do you have in your Messages folder? You’ll either reply 0, or however many the little number crimson number at the top says you have. Guess what? Chances are you have many, many more messages waiting for you.
Open up the Messages folder. Yes, if you haven’t already clicked on it, do so now. Now, look over at the left-hand Favorites menu. What’s that under the Messages option? There’s another folder, slightly indented, labeled as Other. Click on it. There you go, now you’re in the hidden folder, called Other Messages.
This Other option only shows up when you’re already in Messages. That’s why nobody ever sees it: once they click on Messages, they only ever look at the middle of the screen. There’s no demonstrable way to access Other Messages from anywhere else on Facebook. The only other way to get here is to directly go to facebook.com/messages/other/.
When I look through this folder, I mainly see mass messages sent to myself and other invitees of various Facebook Events and members of numerous Facebook Groups. The rest comprise of spam messages, like the demonstrable one you can see in the screenshot above (thanks Addison, I think I’m awesome as well).
When I pointed out this folder to my friends a while back, however, many said that it included items that should not be in there. In other words, they’re not spam and they’re not mass messages. A few even got truly annoyed that Facebook classified some of them incorrectly because they missed significant information.
If you want to stir a message from one folder to the other, you have to open the item in question, and choose the corresponding option from the Deeds menu at the top. Alternatively, if you react to any item in the Other Messages folder, the conversation is moved to your main Messages folder. That’s rather intuitive, unlike the location of the Other Messages folder.
So, when did Facebook add Other Messages? It happened way back in November 2010. That’s right: most people have been unaware of this folder for over a year. You may of course have messages in this folder sent before November 2010, because Facebook automatically moved them there from your inbox when it created the folder. What goes after is how Facebook described its decision to add it.
"It seems wrong that an email message from your best friend gets sandwiched inbetween a bill and a bank statement," a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement. "It’s not that those other messages aren’t significant, but one of them is more meaningful. With fresh Messages, your Inbox will only contain messages from your friends and their friends. All other messages will go into an Other folder where you can look at them separately. If someone you know isn’t on Facebook, that person’s email will originally go into the Other folder. You can lightly budge that conversation into the Inbox, and all the future conversations with that friend will display up there. You can also switch your account settings to be even more limited and bounce any emails that aren’t exclusively from friends."
In brief, messages only emerge in the main inbox if they’re from friends or friends-of-friends, and if they aren’t sent to mailing lists or broad distribution groups. Albeit Other Messages is supposed to work as a junk/spam folder on Facebook, it’s not working flawlessly for everyone. I have no problem with such a folder existing: even my friends who say they missed an significant message admit that most of their messages in there are not worth their time.
That’s not the problem here tho’. I don’t believe Facebook should eliminate this folder, but I do think they need to make it more visible. I would wager that ninety nine percent of Facebook’s eight hundred million monthly active users are fully unaware of its existence.
Facebook likely won’t commence displaying notifications for Other Messages, but I do hope they make it more visible. Until then, it thus seems the best way to make sure you don’t miss anything is to check the Other Messages folder on a regular basis, just like you should for your Junk/Spam folder in your e-mail account.
I very first spotted talk of Other Messages demonstrate up on TNW last month, but it has resurfaced again this week at RedheadWriting and Slate. Since the switch was made over a year ago, I’m sure others have written about it before these two publications. If you’d like to be added to the list, comment below or contact me directly and I’ll see that your article is included.