How can a user re-join a secret Facebook group?

Question

I created a secret group in Facebook where all of my friends can talk and chat about anything. If someone leaves the group and wants to join the group, what can they do?

I am the admin of that group, but when I try to add the user back, it prompts with the error:

You have no authority to add that person

I also have tried making the group open and asking him to search and join back in. But it also fails.

Since it is a secret group, nobody can search for it. He can neither join again nor admin (myself) can add him.

How do I solve this?

Answer 1

My friend left my group. How can I send a second invitation?
Unfortunately, you will not be able to send a second group invitation to the same friend. The person will have to request to join the group again.

That's from Facebook Help, so my best suggestion is to make it open (or even closed, since one can ask to join a closed group) and let this take effect before your friend starts searching it. I could be wrong, but my guess is he could not find/join it because of the fact that the change is not instant.

Answer 2

Can also confirm that a direct link to the secret group does work! A re-request is submitted and an admin is required to approve the request to re-join. But it is NOT necessary to change the status of the group from secret to closed or open.

To obtain a working link go to group's home page and copy the URL from the address bar—will look something like https://www.facebook.com/groups/_________

This solution does work. But note that you may have previously bookmarked the secret group URL as such:

/group.php?gid=123456789etc...

And in this case you may get a "page not found" message (that's what happened to me).

If you replace it with:

/groups/123456789etc...

You may then be able to access the group landing page and request access to the group.