Advanced Features

How do I use and edit the Friends list?
What are the numbers next to friends?
What are merged accounts and how do they work?
Why did a friend just disappear?
Updated Friends mode vs. All Friends mode?
Why are Spokeo’s updates not instantaneous?
Why are some update times incorrect?
Can Spokeo automatically detect my new contacts?
Does Spokeo send out friend requests?
What is a social network import?
Why can’t I import certain social networks?
How do I import contacts without giving any passwords?
How do I import a CSV file?
What are keyboard shortcuts?

1. How do I use and edit the Friends list?

Spokeo People Search not only helps you find friends’ digital identities, but also keeps track of their ongoing updates so that you can stay in the loop. Your Friends list contains all the people you are currently tracking. Unlike most social networks, adding a friend in Spokeo will not notify that person in any way. Your Spokeo Friends list is completely private. To add someone into the list, first search for him/her and then press the “Follow/Add” button at the top right corner. To edit your Friends list, simply RIGHT CLICK your mouse on a friend to bring up the Options menu below. If you are using a Mac with a one-button mouse, please press down the “Ctrl” key then click on a friend to bring up the Options menu. You can then select the appropriate action.

Just like in AIM, Yahoo, or Windows Messenger, you can drag and drop friends to reorder and group them. Please make sure that you drag a friend in between two other friends (as indicated by a line divider) for the reordering action. If you drag a friend on top of another (as indicated by a background highlight), the friends will be merged together into a super-feed.

2. What are the numbers next to friends?

The number is called unread post counter, and it represents the number of new updates that you haven’t seen before. This concept is similar to the unread message count in a typical email program, and it helps you distinguish the new updates from the old. By clicking on a friend, Spokeo will automatically assume that you’ve read all the updates and reset the number to 0. Whenever your friends post newer updates, the number will reappear and accumulate until you click on it again. You can select “Mark everyone as read” from the “Edit” button if you wish to see all your friends’ content as read.

3. What are merged accounts and how do they work?

Many people own multiple accounts on different social networks. Spokeo can automatically identify all the accounts belonging to the same person, and then merge them into one super-feed. These merged accounts (or super-feeds) are graphically represented with the "blue play" icon. Click on the "play" icon to expand and see all the accounts your friend has. Drag a friend on top of another to create a merged account. Drag a friend out of a merged account to undo a merged account.

4. Why did a friend just disappear?

No friend should disappear unless you explicitly delete it. If you notice an unexpected disappearance of any friends, select the “play” icon to check for merged friends. Another possible cause might be that you are in the Updated Friends mode. In the Updated Friends mode, friends will automatically be marked as read and disappear after you’ve clicked away. Please press “Edit Friends” button at the top right corner of your Friends list, and click on the “Show All My Friends” button to return to the default mode.

5. Updated Friends mode vs. All Friends mode?

Updated Friends mode shows only friends and feeds with new updates in your Friends list, hiding those without any recent news. All Friends mode shows all friends and feeds that you are currently tracking in Spokeo, regardless of whether they have any news. Updated Friends mode is an advanced functionality that lets you quickly glance through all the new events in your Friends list.

6. Why are Spokeo’s updates not instantaneous?

Spokeo cannot check your friends’ websites every second because that would overwhelm third-party servers. To maximize content freshness within the update frequency constraints, Spokeo features a sophisticated update scheduler that statistically calculates when your friends will post the next update, then schedules our servers to update their content. The update schedule varies from data type to data type, which will affect the time frame.

7. Why are some update times incorrect?

A lot of information online does not have public dates or time stamps associated with it. When we cannot find the time stamps of the original information, we will display the time of our system’s index. If the information hasn’t been indexed by Spokeo before, Spokeo’s time stamps will be wrong since our initial index does not coincide with the publishing date. That said, once the information has been entered into our index, our system will periodically check it for new updates, and the subsequent time stamps will be more in-sync. If the information includes public time stamps (most blogs have them), Spokeo’s time stamps will be 100% correct.

8. Can Spokeo automatically detect my new contacts?

No, Spokeo cannot automatically detect new contacts added in your address book. Spokeo does not store the passwords of your email accounts; consequently, we cannot re-access your address book after the initial import. This means that we cannot synchronize your address book with your Spokeo account. We plan to add this synchronization feature as an advanced option in the future.

9. Does Spokeo send out friend requests?

No, Spokeo does not send out friend requests when you add someone into your Friends list. When you search for someone, add a friend or import an address book, we do not email or notify anyone in any way for any purpose. In Spokeo, your reading privacy and search anonymity are 100% protected.

10. What is a social network import?

In addition to people search, Spokeo can also aggregate and keep track of all your social contacts across various social networks for you. Simply press the “Import Friends” button at the top of your account, then you can see all the various options to import your social contacts into one convenient place. After the social network import, Spokeo will apply its search heuristics to automatically enhance the imported contacts’ data, giving you new insights into your Web acquaintances.

11. Why can’t I import certain social networks?

Different social networks use different sets of technologies, so our ways of supporting them have to change as well. This is why certain networks support both search and import functionality while others support only search functionality. We are constantly expanding our support and connectivity to various social networks. Please Contact Us if you have any specific request.

12. How do I import contacts without giving any passwords?

Spokeo does not require you to supply third-party passwords to use the service. Spokeo supports Google, Yahoo! and Windows Live (Hotmail) Authentication APIs. These Authentication APIs allow security-conscious users to create Spokeo accounts or import their address books without handing over their webmail credentials. Unfortunately, AOL doesn’t provide a webmail authentication API. We fully intend to support one, should they ever implement it.

13. How do I import a CSV file?

You can still enjoy Spokeo if you use Microsoft Outlook or a non-Webmail service. Simply export your address book into a CSV file (What is CSV?). Press Spokeo’s “Import Friends” button at the top, and then click on the “Import CSV” option.

14. What are keyboard shortcuts?

Keyboard shortcuts let you interface with Spokeo through simple keystrokes, allowing you to browse through friends’ updates more efficiently without reaching for the mouse. By default, the following keyboard shortcuts are supported:

Keyboard Key	Functionality
Right	Jump to next post
Left	Jump to previous post
n	Select next friend
p	Select previous friend
c	Cycle through new and unread posts
b	Toggle between all and updated mode

You can change these default keyboard shortcuts under your Account Settings.