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Question from Mark: This morning I got in a huff and posted a nasty message on my friend’s Facebook Timeline.
A few minutes later I thought better of it and removed it.
I’m absolutely certain that she wasn’t on Facebook when the message was posted and deleted, so I know she never saw it.
Will Facebook notify my friend that I posted a message on her Timeline and then deleted it before she could see it?
Rick’s answer: Mark, the short answer to your question is, well…maybe.
Facebook doesn’t notify a user when someone deletes a post they had left on their Timeline, but they are definitely notified that a post had been put on there in the first place.
That being said, whether your friend will ever see that notification depends on how she next views her Facebook page.
As I mentioned above, when you post something on a friend’s Timeline a notification is sent to that person letting them know about the post.
If you then turn around and delete that post the notification informing them that you had left the post in the first place is removed.
If your friend logs into her Facebook account after you delete the post she will never know you posted it because the original notification of the post was removed when you deleted the post.
However, if your friend is already logged into Facebook and Facebook is already open in her browser or Facebook app the next time she decides to get on Facebook, the deleted notification will still be listed among the other notifications.
In that situation your friend would indeed see the deleted notification unless she decided to refresh the page before looking at her notifications (refreshing the page removes any deleted notifications from the list).
Bottom line: Your friend will never see the actual message you posted, but she might well figure out that you posted something, and then removed it – IF Facebook was already open in her browser or Facebook app when the post was removed.
If your friend is in the habit of either logging out of Facebook or closing the browser or Facebook app every time she ends a Facebook session then she’ll never know you left her a message and then deleted it.
I hope this helps Mark. Good luck!
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