Looking to improve on the Graph Search launched nearly two years ago, Facebook Inc. has introduced an improved Search that not only allows users to seek out specific people, but also specific posts.

“With a quick search, you can get back to a fun video from your graduation, a news article you’ve been meaning to read, or photos from your friend’s wedding last summer,” Tom Stocky, Facebook VP of Search, wrote in a blog post detailing his company’s new feature.

It’s a major update to the popular social network, given the tens of millions of users on the site posting photos, status updates and web links on a daily basis. Search has long been a trouble spot for Facebook, particularly for hunting down content beyond user profiles or apps. Despite intermittent updates to the organization of Facebook content, like posts being broken down into months and years, these newest improvements could reshape the Facebook experience for the better.

Here are the most important highlights of Facebook’s new Search capabilities:

What you need to know about the new Facebook Search

 .

Find anything you’ve seen on Facebook from the past

There are posts on Facebook one would like to see again — maybe a funny video, a specific restaurant, photos from a friend’s wedding, or even an article that got lost in the Home Page News Feed. With the improved Facebook Search users can now find these posts by just typing in some keywords, such as “Lisa cookie recipe.”

 .

Find and connect with people – old and new

Whether you just met someone or are wondering how a high school buddy is doing, Facebook Search helps you better find people. Just type in the name, first name or last name or both, and you will be presented with a list of people that match search results. Facebook Search considers relevance indicators such as personal context, social context, query and global popularity to deliver the most relevant search results for each individual. If you type Tom into Search, Facebook will look for people or brands that are connected to your interests, or Toms that your friends know.

 .

Search and Privacy

Though Facebook has improved its search feature, the social giant ensures user privacy remains intact. Only those users shared to you by your connections are searchable, and only those you shared to them can be searched by your friends.

Facebook has allowed its users to choose an audience for their posts. Users can choose to make their posts only available to them, to friends, publicly, or even create custom groups to easily share or hide posts. Users can also edit their activity logs to hide or remove stories, as well as edit your basic information which includes anything on one’s profile and photos.

.

Find places

Planning a trip but don’t know where to go? Enter names of places in the search bar and see if any of your friends have been there. You can see photos shared by your friends, and you can ask them about their experience, some tips for the best places to grab some food, cheapest place to stay at and other information that will help you plan your trip.

.

Great on mobile

As of September 2014, there are 864 million daily active users on Facebook, over 70o million of those users are mobile. No wonder Facebook made an effort to design the new Search with mobile in mind. Simply put, the ease of use of Facebook Search will be available for both desktop clients and those on the iPhone.

The new Facebook Search has started rolling out to iPhone and desktop users in the U.S. and in the coming weeks will also become available for Android users as well as other regions.

 Image via Facebook Inc.