Your Facebook Has Two Inboxes, and You’ve Probably Missed Messages from the Second

Facebook only notifies you of messages from your friends, and yet anyonecan send you a message on Facebook. The result: You have a whole separate inbox of messages from pages you like and people you aren’t yet friends with. Here’s how to make sure you haven’t missed anything important.To access your “hidden” inbox, click on the “Messages” link on the left-hand side of your Facebook home page. From there, you should see a sub-option—called “Other”—pop up under Messages. Click that to see your other messages. As you can see in the screenshot above, it’s usually unimportant mass messages from fan pages, but not always. Slate writer Elizabeth Weingarten, for example, missed a few messages that were rather urgent:

On Nov. 15 at approximately 11:45 p.m., I left my 1-month-old MacBook Air in the back of a New York City cab. Quickly realizing my error, I freaked out: Hands shaking, I dialed the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission, reported the cab’s medallion number (I had a receipt) and jotted down the phone number of city precincts where my cargo could end up (if a good Samaritan turned it in). Then, I slumped against the side of a building and sobbed.

[Nearly a month later], a colleague at Slate sent an email around about the messages Facebook hides in an obscure folder labeled “Other” . . . When I [checked it], I inhaled sharply: A man had sent me four very important messages: two on Nov. 16, one on the 17th, and another on the 18th. . . “Dear Elizabeth, I found your laptop in a taxi. Please call me at xxxxxxxxx.”

Some of you may have noticed this, others not—and we thought it was important to make sure everyone was aware of their second inbox. Facebook doesn’t send you notifications of messages from non-friend sources, which means if someone who isn’t a friend attempts to contact you, or if one of your “Liked” pages sends out an update, you won’t get a notification—you’ll only see it if you head to this “second inbox” manually.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to change this lack-of-notifying behavior on Facebook. It’s annoying that this isn’t an option—especially when Facebook doesn’t do a very good job of separating “important” from “unimportant”—but for now, all you can do is remember to check this “Other” inbox regularly. Hit the link to read more.

Furious at Facebook Again! | Slate