Let’s get Lurker watching.

Use Chrome on a computer.

• Have your Lurker email address and access to your email inbox ready.
• Use your own Facebook account in Chrome. Join any private group yourself and follow its rules.
• Keep the computer awake, Chrome running, and the Facebook tab used by your watcher open. Closing the laptop or suspending the tab can stop monitoring.

The iPhone app is a companion for reviewing opportunities and preparing replies. It does not monitor Facebook on its own. A cloud browser needs extension support and a persistent, active session; signing in to an agent alone does not provide those.

Create your free account.

1. Open Lurker signup. Enter your name, company or workspace name, email, and password. Review the terms presented during signup, then select Create free account.
2. If Lurker asks you to confirm your email, open that message and complete confirmation. Check spam if it does not arrive.
3. Already signed up? Log in using the same email instead of creating another workspace. Use Forgot password if needed.
4. Open Settings and confirm the workspace and plan.

Start small on Free: one watched group, up to five positive keywords and five negative keywords, with keyword-only watching. No card is required. Your workspace’s Settings shows its current limits. You can finish this guide without upgrading.

Install the extension and sign in.

1. In desktop Chrome, open the official Lurker listing. Confirm the publisher is AJAI LLC, select Add to Chrome, and review Chrome’s permission prompt.
2. Open Chrome’s Extensions menu (the puzzle-piece icon), pin Lurker if useful, then open Lurker and select the Settings tab.
3. Enter the same Lurker email and password. The extension’s button is labeled Sign in to AJAI; AJAI is Lurker’s publisher. You do not need a separate AJAI Engage subscription.
4. If prompted to Choose a company, select your workspace. Under Account, confirm Signed in and the correct company before proceeding.

Sign in to Facebook yourself in a separate Chrome tab. Lurker does not ask for your Facebook password or log in for you.

Save a few useful keywords.

1. In the extension’s Settings tab, find Watcher mode and Local keywords. For Free, use the Keyword-only watcher.
2. Enter phrases customers might use, one per line or separated by commas. Use your own services, rather than a broad word such as “help.”
3. Add optional Negative keywords for content you want to exclude, then select Save keywords. Look for Keywords saved.
4. Close and reopen the extension to confirm the saved values remain.

An Active label beside Keyword-only watcher identifies the matching mode. You still need to start a watcher in Step 5.

See the keyword controls

Save the group you want to watch.

1. Open one Facebook group you can already access. Use that group’s own page, not the general Groups feed, search results, or Facebook home.
2. With the group tab selected, open Lurker. Open Groups → Add by URL, then select Add current group tab.
3. Open the Groups tab and confirm the intended group is saved and enabled. On Free, keep just one enabled group.
4. If the group is not detected, return to its page, wait for it to load, reopen Lurker, and select Refresh open tabs.

For a plan that allows more groups, open the intended group tabs and use Groups → Add from open tabs to select them, then Save selected groups. Use Save all open groups only when every open group is one you intend to save.

Saving a group does not start watching it. Continue to the next step.

See where to save a group

Choose one way to start watching.

For your first setup, start with the group tab so you can see the page being watched. Notification watching is an alternative for following new group notifications Facebook makes available to you.

Option A: watch your open group

1. Keep the intended Facebook group tab selected and let its posts load.
2. Open Lurker and turn on Live watch this open group under Watch → Group-tab controls and status.
3. Check Active group watchers for the correct group and an Active state. Select Refresh watcher list if needed.
4. Keep that group tab open and the computer awake. When using more groups within your plan, Start watching all group tabs acts on all open supported group tabs.

Option B: watch Facebook notifications

1. Complete Step 4 first. In Lurker’s Groups tab, turn on Only investigate notifications from watched groups to limit this watcher to your enabled saved groups.
2. Open Facebook notifications yourself, select that tab, and wait for it to load.
3. Open Lurker’s Watch tab and select Start watching.
4. Expand Notification watcher details, then select Refresh notification status and confirm Notification Watcher: Active. Keep the notifications tab open. Group tabs are needed only if you also run group-tab watchers or use them yourself.

The watched-group filter with no enabled saved groups blocks investigations. Notification watching depends on notifications Facebook actually loads; it is not a scan of every post in every saved group. Existing items can be treated as a starting baseline, so do not expect an immediate import of old posts.

You can close the extension popup after starting; keep the required Facebook tabs and Chrome running. Leave advanced resource and testing controls at their defaults for initial setup.

Scan older posts with a limit you choose.

Use Past posts to review older posts that Facebook loads in one group you already have access to. Choose a UTC date range, keyword-only or eligible AI company-aware review, and a post, time, and analysis budget.

1. Update the Chrome extension to 0.1.20 or later. If that version is still awaiting Chrome Store approval, wait for the update; the new controls will appear after it installs. Reload your Facebook group tab after updating.
2. Open the specific group, return to the top, and choose New posts if Facebook offers it. Keep the group selected and visible.
3. Open Lurker’s Past posts tab. Choose the dates and scan mode. Keyword-only uses your saved local positive and negative keywords; AI company-aware requires an eligible plan and configured business context.
4. Set all three budgets and confirm that the group is at the top. Select Start historical scan. The scan scrolls the group and saves eligible matching opportunities to your normal inbox.
5. Use Pause, Resume, or Cancel while the page remains open. Hiding the group pauses collection, but the time limit keeps running. Reloading or closing the page loses the running scan.
6. Read the final stop reason, examined and analyzed counts, duplicate count, date/link gaps, and oldest dated post seen. Check saved opportunities in Lurker and open the original Facebook posts before responding.

Limits and costs

• Date selection: up to 365 days back, ending today or earlier, using UTC dates.
• Per scan: 1–5,000 posts examined, 1–30 minutes, and 1–1,000 nonduplicate analyses. The first reached limit stops the scan. Your plan’s AI allowance can also restrict AI work.
• Duplicates are skipped without another analysis and do not consume the analysis budget. They can still appear in examined-post totals.
• Historical scans do not send individual opportunity email/push alerts or automatically create reply drafts. Review saved matches in your inbox; all Facebook replies remain manual.

How far back can it actually reach?

The 365-day range is a selection limit, not a promise of retrieval. Facebook decides what loads, and ranked feeds can mix dates. A scan may stop much sooner because of its time or post budget, unavailable older posts, missing dates or links, or a page change. The oldest post seen does not prove every post since that date was checked.

In one Orange Beach group, two 30-minute tests examined 209 posts in AI mode and 325 in keyword-only mode and reached roughly five days back. Both ended with zero unresolved dates and zero missing links. This is one test group, not a typical-depth guarantee or a controlled comparison of the two modes.

Full feature guide and FAQs → · Copyable feature brief →

Check the setup, then the first result.

Open the app’s Watchers page using the same account and company. Compare it with the extension.

1. Configuration saved: your keywords are still present, the intended group is enabled, and the app’s enabled/synced group counts agree with what you saved.
2. Watcher running: the watcher you chose is Active and its Heartbeat or Last heartbeat is recent. Refresh the status after about a minute and confirm the time advances. Check Last scan where shown. A green mode badge alone is not enough.
3. Warnings resolved: review Setup warnings. Fix an expired session, missing groups, or a sync warning before assuming monitoring is ready. You do not need both watcher types to be active.
4. First result confirmed: when a new eligible match is observed, check the last decision and open the opportunity inbox. Review the summary and match reason, then open the source in Facebook to verify context.

An empty inbox does not by itself mean failure: there may be no new matching posts, an item may be part of the initial baseline, or filters may exclude it. You do not need to publish a test post. Keep the watcher active for normal group activity, then confirm a real eligible result. Until then, record “watcher running; first result not yet verified.” Coverage is not guaranteed.

Review and edit any available reply before copying it. You decide whether to post in Facebook.

Review opportunities on iPhone.

1. Install Lurker by AJAI from the App Store and sign in with the same Lurker account. Check that you have selected the same company.
2. Open an opportunity and review its AI summary. Use Open Facebook post to inspect the source in Facebook. The iPhone app does not display the original Facebook post or comment text.
3. Where reply assistance is available, generate or edit your reply and use Copy reply & open Facebook. Paste and review it in Facebook before deciding to post.
4. For an approved image, follow the Prepare reply & open Facebook instructions. The image is saved to Photos and you attach it yourself to the same comment draft.

If Facebook does not open correctly, use Copy post link and paste it into Safari. If the app reports that an exact post link is unavailable, check the original group; do not assume a fallback destination is the exact post.

Keep the desktop watcher running. Installing the iPhone app does not replace Chrome monitoring.

Recover without starting over.

Give your agent a clear finish line.

Share this page or its Markdown guide. An agent can help choose keywords and walk through the steps. Its ability to operate the extension depends on its browser tools.

1. Ask the person what they want to find, which group they already have access to, which workspace to use, and whether they want the Free-plan path. Explain proposed keyword changes before saving.
2. Use this guide’s current visible labels. If the interface differs or a control is inaccessible, ask the person to complete that step and report what they see. Do not assume a click succeeded.
3. Let the person complete account login, verification codes, Facebook challenges, permission prompts, and agreement acceptance. Never request Facebook passwords, cookies, access tokens, or private session files in chat. Do not upgrade, post, message, or join groups without the person’s explicit instruction.
4. Verify saved settings, the selected company, enabled/synced groups, and an advancing heartbeat. Report configuration saved, watcher running, and first result verified as separate checkpoints; mark anything not observed as unverified.
5. Explain which tab and computer must remain running. An agent finishing its task is not evidence of ongoing monitoring. Do not promise that a cloud browser can install the extension or stay active indefinitely.

Set it up with Andrew, free.

Configuration can take a little work. Book a free one-on-one meeting with Andrew to choose your keywords, connect a group, and check your watcher together.

Book your free setup meeting

Watch the walkthroughs

• Finding Facebook group opportunities with Lurker
• Using Lurker’s image library for replies
• All tutorials and written iPhone instructions

The videos introduce the workflow; use this written guide for the current desktop setup controls.

For support, email support@getlurker.com with the step, app or extension version, and non-sensitive error text. Do not send Facebook passwords, cookies, access tokens, private messages, customer data, or unredacted screenshots. See support for more help.