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Connect your Facebook account

To read listings inside private groups, Housing Scout needs to view Facebook as you — a logged-in member. You give it permission by copying your Facebook "session cookies" once. It takes about two minutes, and you'll only redo it every few weeks.

There's no password involved and nothing to type out by hand. A small free browser add-on copies the cookies for you in one click — you just paste them into Housing Scout.

Step 1 — Install the free "Cookie-Editor" add-on

This is the only tool you need. It works in Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge and Opera.

Get Cookie-Editor (free)

Opens cookie-editor.com, which sends you to the right add-on store for your browser. It's a well-known, reputable extension.

Then, once it's installed

  1. Open Facebook and make sure you're logged in

    Go to facebook.com in the same browser and sign in as normal. Leave that tab open.

  2. Click the Cookie-Editor icon

    While you're on the Facebook tab, click the Cookie-Editor icon in your toolbar. If you don't see it, click the puzzle-piece menu and pick Cookie-Editor from the list.

  3. Export as JSON

    In the little window that opens, click Export (bottom toolbar), then choose Export as JSON. That copies all your Facebook cookies to your clipboard — nothing gets saved to a file.

  4. Paste into Housing Scout

    Come back here, paste into the Facebook session cookies box (replace anything already there), and click Save settings. That's it — you're connected.

Your privacy: these cookies are stored only on your own machine and are never sent anywhere except to Facebook, exactly as your own browser does. They expire after a few weeks — if Housing Scout stops finding new posts, just repeat these steps to refresh them. You can log out of these cookies any time by changing your Facebook password.