On August 31, 2021, the VKontakte team introduced a new privacy setting “Closed Profile” in response to criminal cases for reposting and general deletion of pages of active military personnel, who are often prohibited by internal instructions from having active profiles that reveal their identity.
A private profile allows you to hide all page information except the current avatar, first and last name, mutual friends, number of friends and posts, status, date of birth, online time, city and place of work
Only his friends, and not any social network user, will be able to complain about the actions of a person with a private account.
How to close your profile via phone
Follow this link: https://vk.com/settings?act=privacy or go to privacy in settings. At the very bottom there will be a section “other” and an item “private profile” - click on it. If you do not have this menu item, then update the application version.
Now your profile will be displayed to non-friends as shown in the picture below.
Safe ways to get information from a private profile on VKontakte
A closed account is a means by which a VK user can protect his data, but this protection is not flawless. By 2019, several ways to view a hidden VK profile have appeared. They do not require special technical knowledge, but not a single option gives a 100% guarantee that you will get what you want.
Add user as friend
To gain access to hidden information, the easiest way is to add the owner of the page as a friend. For greater effect, you can create a fake account, fill it with positive memes and choose an attractive avatar. Then submit your request and write a friendly message. Usually this tactic works and the application is accepted. True, if the user was not too lazy to hide the information using privacy settings, then even after adding it as a friend, it will not be visible. Then all that remains is to gradually win his trust so that he voluntarily gives access to the necessary information.
Important!
When adding as a friend, try to be unobtrusive, otherwise the user will think that they want to involve him in something.
Ask friends for help
Another option is to ask for help from a person who is a friend of the owner of the hidden profile. The intermediary can find and forward you the information you need. The only difficulty is that you will have to explain why you need it. This option will work if the person you contacted is trustworthy. If not, there is a risk that he will pass on your request to the page owner.
Visit the desired user in person
If the user is a good friend of yours, you can visit him and gain access to his computer. For example, ask him to show his profile under an innocent pretext. If you did not succeed, then you can look for information when he goes to another room. This option is difficult to implement, but it should not be completely ruled out.
How to look if you know the ID
To obtain information from a closed VK account, for example, access to photos or videos, it is enough to know the ID. It will be visible in the address bar when you navigate to the page. All VKontakte links consist of a constant and variable part. The constant defines the profile section, the variable defines its ID. To view the desired section, enter the constant part in the address bar, and then the ID of the owner of the closed account, as shown in the example:
- notes - https://kontakte.ru/notes.php?id=ID;
- photo albums - https://vkontakte.ru/photos.php?act=albums&oid=ID;
- applications - https://vkontakte.ru/apps.php?midID.
If the user has hidden a section with privacy settings, then even knowing the ID, it will not be possible to find out its contents. However, owners of private profiles are often too lazy to set up the page manually, so this method usually works.
How to look without knowing the ID
This task is much more difficult. If for some reason you cannot find out the ID, you can add the user as a friend, get to know him personally, ask hackers to hack the account, or try another option where the ID is not needed. However, if you decide to turn to network services for help, you will have to find out the identifier.
How to find out ID
On the VKontakte social network there is a way to change a numeric ID to an alphabetic one. In this case, the real identifier does not change, it is simply hidden. To find out, the following methods are effective:
- use a service that reveals a hidden ID, for example, showid.ru. To do this, copy the link in the address bar of your profile and enter it in the required field. The ID number will appear at the bottom;
- open the account owner's avatar by clicking on it. The numbers in the address bar after the word “photo” are the real ID.
How to close your profile via computer
Follow this link: https://vk.com/settings?act=privacy or in the upper right corner of the page, click on the checkbox and the “settings” button.
On the right side of the page, select “privacy”
Scroll to the bottom and you will see the option you need
Your profile to non-friends will appear like this:
Services for viewing closed VK pages
At the moment, two services are available that allow you to find access to closed VKontakte pages without registration or other difficulties.
Vkontakte.doguran.ru
This is a simple but very convenient service that has gained great popularity among Russian-speaking users. The essence of its work is this: the site automatically generates links that open personal data and content on closed pages. That is, the service independently carries out the work described in the previous paragraph of our article. Anyone can understand the algorithm of work on the site. Especially for this, detailed tips are provided that will help even a person who does not have much experience communicating with the World Wide Web.
Results of the privacy update
- By default, your profile remains public. You can close it in the privacy settings: vk.com/settings?act=privacy.
- The profile will be closed from all users who are not your friends. Your friends will still be able to see all the information previously available to them.
- Outside users in a private profile will see: first and last name, current main photo (without the ability to open it and see previous ones), a list of mutual friends, counters with the number of friends and entries, as well as status, age, city and place of work (if these items filled).
- When setting a private profile type, all privacy settings are automatically reset to “Friends Only” or remain the same if they were with more strict parameters: for example, “Nobody”. When you open the profile, the settings will return to their previous state.
- When closing a profile, the page owner will see a sign indicating that the profile is not available to everyone. From there you can go directly to your privacy settings.
In our service you can keep track of your friends, who they add and unfriend, who follows them, their fans and hidden and hiding friends.
What is ID
So, privacy in VK is a rather illusory phenomenon, since modern users have long come up with ways to declassify closed pages. But, before we begin to consider methods for bypassing blocking, let’s figure out what an ID is and how to find it out.
A user ID in VK is a digital or alphabetic code by which the system recognizes a profile and determines its address. With a known ID, viewing a closed page turns into a matter of a couple of minutes. You can find out the ID like this:
- From your page, go to the profile of the desired user.
- Pay attention to the address bar. After the letters “id” comes a combination of letters or numbers. This is the page identification code.
If the numeric code has been replaced with an alphabetic one, then the original combination will be required for further work. It's easy to recognize her. To do this, just go to the user’s page, and from there go to one of the profile sections: with music, videos, groups or friends. Here you need to look again at the address bar and copy there the set of numbers that comes after the letters “id”.
We recommend: How to see who visited my page in VK
When working with closed pages, things become somewhat more complicated. However, for an experienced user nothing is impossible. Here's a little instruction:
- Click on the private profile photo. As a rule, the main image remains available for any type of blocking.
- Look at the address bar of your browser. After the word “photo” comes the combination we need.
Now you can start directly viewing the pages you are interested in.
Closed VK profile in search engine memory
You can find some information about the user through the Yandex or Google cache. If the page was closed quite recently, and in the privacy settings access was opened for search engines, then Yandex and Google indexed it. This means that you can view a private profile as follows:
- Save the profile link to the clipboard.
- Paste it into the search bar and press Enter.
- View the results and click on the small gray triangle facing down. It is located to the right of the name of the page that leads to the user's profile or public page. Gray arrow button
- In response, a drop-down window will appear with a short list of possible actions. Select the “Saved copy” line. Link to go to the saved copy of the page
- View available profile content. Only the information that was open at the time of indexing will be visible.
Many users hide all unnecessary information at the registration stage in 2021.
To hide a VK page from search engines so that no one can see it, just do the following:
- Go to “Settings”; How to get to Settings
- Open the “Privacy” tab; Go to privacy settings
- Scroll to the very bottom, where the “Other” section is located; You need to scroll to the bottom of the page
- Select the desired settings regarding the item “Who can see my page on the Internet.” Profile visibility settings
If the user has not done all this, then his profile will be indexed by search engines. In addition, if other people link to it in comments to posts, then id
the person will appear in the search results.
This way you can determine what kind of network activity the user from the account you are interested in was involved in. Most often, search engines index popular mentions in this way, which have a lot of likes. However, rare links to the desired user could also be taken into account. Also enter the required profile through the WayBackMachine service. It is unlikely to provide information about the account you are looking for, but it is worth a try. WayBackMachine Service
How to view a private VKontakte profile? Add as a friend
The easiest way is to add the person you need as a friend. After the application is approved, all private information will be available. But not everyone has trust in virtual strangers. You will have to act based on the specific situation and person. Study the life and interests of the subject, analyze what could hook him.
Option: register a profile with an attractive photo of a man/woman. Create an interesting profile and it is possible that the “victim” will make contact and approve the application.
Why do people make their VKontakte profile private?
The first reason is people's right to privacy. Not everyone wants information about them to be publicly available. In 2011, users were outraged that they could no longer close their pages. Some are open to the world, others are not.
Seven years later, the VK administration heard them and returned the closed accounts. The second reason is more serious. VKontakte management was forced to introduce closed profiles by criminal cases. Perhaps you have heard about how people were arrested by the police for posting anti-patriotic videos and images? This is a common practice of intelligence services, which regularly monitor open suspicious VK pages. Private profiles protect users from such observations and unexpected arrests.
