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Facebook turns 20 years old in just over a month, and it’s still unveiling new features to the public. Until now, there wasn’t really a way for you to keep track of the links you open on Facebook. This hasn’t been a big problem, but that’s not stopping the company from making changes. Today, Facebook just introduced us to the link history feature.
Keep track of your links on Facebook
The Facebook help page explains how this feature works, and it’s pretty straightforward. When you view the page with your history, you’ll see a log of the links that you followed. So, you’ll be able to see all of the links that you recently visited on the app.
Not having a history of your links isn’t quite a big issue. Most people go onto Facebook to check up on their friends and post their status, not to browse the internet. So, a link history feature isn’t as crucial to Facebook as it is with Google Chrome or Safari.
However, that is not to say that this feature is useless. If you spend enough time on Facebook, you’re bound to open a handful of links before you call it a day. Tracking down those links on an ever-changing and scrolling feed is nearly impossible. So, if you happen to stumble across a link that lights up your night, you’ll have a way to find it again.
What else should I know about Facebook link history?
There are a few things to note before you try to access your history. Firstly, this feature is still rolling out at the moment. So, there’s a chance that you won’t see it. It might not be available in your area just yet. If you don’t see it, then you’ll want to wait and check back every now and then.
If you’re planning on looking for a link you visited a while back, you’ll be disappointed. This feature will only save your history from the past 30 days. So, if you come across a great link, you’ll only have a month to revisit it.
There are going to be people who don’t like this feature. For those people, there’s a way for you to disable it. Just know that this feature will be enabled by default, so if you don’t like the thought of it, we’ll go over how to disable it later on in the article.
One important thing to know is that (surprising no one) Facebook will use the links in your history to refine its ads for you. So, this is another way for the company to obtain information on you to target its ads. This will be the motivation for more people to disable this feature.
Lastly, Facebook link history is only for people using the mobile app on Android and iOS.
How to disable Facebook link history
It’s pretty easy to disable this feature. Firstly, tap on the three-dot menu at the top right of the screen. There, tap on the Go to Settings button. You’ll see a list of services and features that you can enable/disable. Look for the Allow link history option. Tap on the switch next to it to turn it off. You’ll then get a confirmation popup.
Once you disable it, your link history up to that point will be deleted, so make sure you save any links that you don’t want to lose.