It is quite annoying for us developers that getting the numeric user id when that user has a vanity URL. Granted that for user’s that hasn’t set their own (vanity) URL names, this is easy, just login and see the URL bar, which will be something like https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=NUMERIC_ID.

But for user that has vanity URL, such as this: https://www.facebook.com/fpermadi1, then those users might have to go through hoops to get the numeric user id.

You might be wondering why do one still need the numeric ID at all. There are many reasons, and one thing that just come to my head is this: to add users as Facebook Credits tester, the forms wants the numeric ID.

I have written about a simple way to get the ID using the Graph API web service here: https://permadi.com/blog/2011/04/getting-your-facebook-numeric-user-id/. But you can’t use that for a user that isn’t you (you’ll have to get the other user to login).

So here’s something I wrote to get the numeric user ID. Click the Get Info button to get the user’s publicly available info.

Bug: Do not use the Enter User Name field. It no longer works. See:
https://developers.facebook.com/bugs/266794040030851