Facebook login notifications: get email alerts when someone signs in to access your account

As time passes, and Facebook becomes more popular, it has had to add quite a few security measures to its service to help prevent fraud and hacking; one of the new features Facebook has added is the ability to optionally sign up to get "Login notifications": these are email alerts or text messages that will be sent to your Facebook contact email / cell phone number, letting you know that someone signed in to your account from an unrecognized computer. In this tutorial, we will explain how to setup login notifications for your profile, and show you a sample email, so you'll recognize them right away if/when you receive them!

Tip: in your account security settings, Facebook will show you recent login activity (last sign in access) with computer / device and browser used, and location.

Make Facebook tell you when your account is accessed from a new computer

First, sign in to your Facebook account; then, click on the "Account" button in the top right corner, and choose "Account Settings" from the dropdown menu. Facebook will load the "My Account" screen:

• Confirm that the "Settings" tab should be selected at the top, and scroll down to the section labeled "Account Security - Control your browsing and login security".
• Click on the "change" link on the right, and Facebook will reveal a series of options; "Login Notifications" is the second group, and contains two checkboxes under "When an unrecognized computer or device tries to access my account", both unchecked by default:
  
  
• Check "Send me an email" to get these remote login notifications to your Facebook contact email, and/or check the "Send me a text message" to receive notifications to your cell phones. For the purpose of this tutorial, we'll choose email notifications.
• Click on the "Save" button to apply the new setting; from this point on, Facebook will automatically notify you whenever you or someone else logs into your profile from an unrecognized computer (Mac / PC / Linux desktop computer) or some kind of internet-enabled device (smartphone like the iPhone, tablet like the iPad, etc.)

What happens when an unknown sign in occurs?

The next time a successful login occurs from a new device or computer, Facebook will show you this popup notification at the bottom of the screen: "An unrecognized device recently attempted to access your account, let us know if it was you". Remember that you can also view your recent login history at any point.


You will also see a "new sign in attempt" message from the Facebook Notifications dropdown:

Finally, Facebook will also send you an email message (assuming you picked that option earlier on), giving you the date and time at which the remote login happened, the location (city and state), as well as the IP address of the user. The email message will also include a link on which you'll need to click if you didn't know of, or authorized, this particular login attempt. But before going through the trouble of changing Facebook password, do check with anyone you have authorized to access your account / profile: they may just have bought a new computer or mobile internet device, which would be a false alert.

Tip: the title, or subject line, of the email message will read "Facebook Login from {new device name}", where "device name" is the label you or the unauthorized party picked for their machine (a screen you see when you first login to Facebook from a new device). Keep in mind that Facebook will never ask for your username and/or password by email - if you get such a message, it is a scam (also known as "phishing attempt"), designed to steal your credentials!

To receive these login notifications to another address than the one used to sign in to your profile, you can change Facebook contact email (or add a new one).