I have a problem with my facebook Timeline and I would appreciate if you could help me, because I have tried everything else and am still stumped. I accidentally hid the date I joined in on my Facebook Timeline and now I can’t get it to show up again. It doesn’t appear at my Timeline to change it and make it visible. Neither is it on my Activity Log (as hidden activity). What can I do to have join date appear on my Timeline again?
That’s an interesting puzzle and it spurred me into poking around on Facebook and finding out that I joined back in Sept of 2006. A long time ago!
It also reveals something interesting, and rather puzzling about how the activity log works, because it’s not logical. That is, if you hide something on your Timeline, it seems reasonable for that activity, you’re clicking “hide”, to be something that’s worthy of an entry in your log. But it isn’t. In fact, there are some things you do that show up on your activity log and other things you do that don’t appear to be worthy of note.
Which means that the really simple solution of popping into your own log and undoing the “hide” isn’t an option. So we’ll have to dig into the Timeline a bit deeper to find things.
I’ll start by showing how I found my own “joined Facebook date” on my Timeline. To do that, I clicked on my name then on the right side clicked on the oldest year shown. A few moments later and it’s all populated on screen, including the very first entry you’ll have, when you joined Facebook in the first place:
Look a bit more closely at the icons surrounding this entry and you’ll see how you can hide this if you’re so inclined (in case you haven’t already hidden it):
Once I choose to hide this particular entry from my Facebook Timeline by choosing the ingeniously worded “Hide from Timeline” option, confirmation appears:
Cold feet? No worries, click on “Undo” and it’ll appear again.
But let’s assume that a few days — or weeks – have gone by and now you want to have it reappear. This is basically where you come into the conversation, right? 🙂
Now the challenge is to find it when it’s not actually on your Timeline and the “hide” action isn’t actually worthy of getting an entry in the activity log.
Turns out, however, that it is in the activity log, but based on the date of the entry, not the date of your “hide”. So click on the “Activity Log” button on your own profile:
Now look on the right and click on the oldest year it shows, just as you did to find this earlier if you were playing along from home!
In my case, I joined in 2006 so that’s the earliest year on my timeline…
Clicking on that moves me down to activities I was doing on Facebook that year — which isn’t much! — and includes an entry for when I joined:
Oddly, this shows that while I marked my join date to be hidden, Facebook appears to have ignored it and still shows it as viewable to public. If it is indeed marked as hidden, it’ll still show up here, but with different tiny icons.
Click on the pencil to edit things and you’ll see the two choices given:
Choose “Allowed on Timeline” and though it apparently takes a bit to process, it’ll reappear on your timeline and you’ll be good to go!
Hi,
My question is a little different. I joined Facebook in 2004, but my timeline only shows me as far back as 2007. We are desperately in need of information from 2006, but we cannot see it. How do I get my timeline to go back to when I was “born?”
Thank you so much for any help you may be able to give. I so greatly appreciate it.
Try using the “export” feature in Facebook to get to the older data, Sonia? Read this: https://www.facebook.com/help/302796099745838
What if I followed all of those steps, but “Alana Joined Facebook” is not there? Did I actually delete the event instead of hide it?
I did what you said and it worked 100%. Thanks so much! :).
Same problem … I removed it the other day, thinking I could put it back if I changed my mind. But when I went to Activity Log it is NOT there at all.
It is no where to be found in the activity log!
The mans original question and the question we all have here is—> How to get it back if it’s not even in the Activity Log? That’s the question!
I think I figured it but this is from the mobile app. I went to my timeline, hit the little screw looking thing in the upper right hand corner which turned into a checkmark and the words “edit profile” appear. I scrolled down just a bit and hit “edit details”. There’s a section called “member since” I clicked on it so the little dot turns blue. I hit save and bam it appears on y timeline. Make sure to hit the little checkmark on the upper right hand corner again to leave the “edit profile” section. That’s all!!
worked for me!
This worked for me too. Thanks so much!
I went to my profile > edit details > scrolled down to the joined Facebook section > selected “Joined Facebook April 2009.” It now appears in the intro tab of my profile.
Worked for me (Thumbs up)
i have same problem..
but i cannot find out and i cannot solve the problem as per the above. i cannot found last two boxes in my time line. please advice
Hi,
I am facing the exact same issue. However, even after making the changes as suggested above, the date of joining does not appear on timeline.
Please advice!
hi, i did exactly what you did but it still wasnt there. Just the very first post. I remember hiding it and I did close my account for awhile maybe that affected it.
thank you