In this day and age, Facebook is an important tool for collecting and sharing our lives. We post memories, photos, and videos to share with our friends and family. Every so often you might want to make your own backup of all those valuable memories, and luckily Facebook makes it super quick and easy to do.
Step 1 – Settings
To get started, find the small down-pointed arrow in the upper right corner of your Facebook page and click on it. Find ‘Settings’ in the list that drops down from it and click on it.
Step 2 – Start the Archive
You’ll be taken to the General Account Settings page. There’s a list of things you can change here like your primary email address, your password, et cetera. Below the last bolded option (Temperature) is some small text that says “Download a copy of your Facebook data.” Click on it. You’ll be sent to a page asking you if you want to ‘Start My Archive’. It briefly lists some of the things you’ll be able to download from this archive like photos, videos, and wall posts. There’s also a link here to a full list of what you can expect from the archive. It’s surprisingly long and detailed, so go take a look. Besides the obvious bits of data there’s also your check-in locations, deleted friends, facial recognition data, the friends and pages you’ve hidden from your news feed, and much more.
Once you click on ‘Start My Archive’ you’ll be asked to enter your password for security purposes. This way if you leave you Facebook logged in somewhere public, strangers wouldn’t be able to just download all your data. After that, you have to just wait for the email with your download link. It didn’t take very for my email to arrive – only a few minutes – but I’m not as heavy of a Facebook user as many people.
Step 3 – Follow the Email Link
Once you get your email, follow the link provided to your archive download. The email should look like the image below, so if it doesn’t be careful!
You’ll then be sent to the download page where you can click on the ‘Download Archive’ button. Before the download starts you are once again asked to enter your password to really make sure you are you. The .ZIP folder will start downloading and you’ll be good to go!
Remember to keep the archive somewhere safe – it contains a lot of personal data so you’ll want to make sure it is secured. Now you don’t have to worry about losing your pictures, videos, and thoughts posted over the years!
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