Catch Up on a Friend's Facebook Timeline in One Read

Your muse can read a friend's Facebook timeline in pages of up to 20 posts at a time, with the time and a link for each post, so you can catch up on what they have shared without opening Facebook and scrolling.

What it does

A timeline is the stream of posts on one person's page. Through your muse, you name a friend and get their recent posts as a list: the words of each post, when it was posted, a link to open it, and a short description of any photo or video attached. A timeline holds two kinds of posts mixed together: the ones the person wrote themselves, and the ones other people left on their wall, like birthday greetings. The muse keeps those apart by checking whether the writer matches the timeline owner, so greetings do not get mistaken for news from your friend. Ask for a set stretch, such as the past month, and the muse states the window it used. When a page ends, ask to continue for the next page. It works the same way for your own timeline, a handy way to find an old post of yours.

How to use it

1. Connect Facebook to your muse.
2. Name the friend. If more than one friend matches, pick from the short list using the city, workplace, or profile link shown for each.
3. Say the stretch you want, such as the past week or the past month.
4. Read the list, with wall posts from other people marked as such.
5. Ask for the next page if you want to go further back.
6. Open any post link to see the post in place, with its comments and reactions.

What you need

• A Muse account with Facebook connected
• The person to be one of your Facebook friends, or the timeline to be your own
• A rough idea of how far back you want to look

What to watch for

• This read covers your own timeline and your friends' timelines only. A person who is not your Facebook friend returns a not accessible result, and the muse stops there rather than looking them up another way.
• An empty page means no posts came back for that stretch. It does not say why, and the muse will not guess.
• Photo and video descriptions are short summaries, not the full picture, so open the post itself before you act on what it seems to show.
• Posts are reported as written, in the order they were returned.