Whether you're leaving Facebook for good or simply curious about what data the social network has collected on you, you might want to download your Facebook data.

The selection to download your Facebook data has existed since 2010, as Mark Zuckerberg made clear when he promised to ready Facebook after the Senate hearings of April 2018.

Then allow's take a look at how to download your Facebook data, what's included, and, perchance most importantly, what'due south non included.

How to Download Your Facebook Information and History

All Facebook users are able to request the information download via their General Account Settings. You tin can exercise this via your computer browser, mobile browser, the Facebook app, and even on Facebook Lite.

Since the file yous're downloading is quite large, nosotros'll cover the method nearly users will opt for—sending the asking via your desktop browser.

How to Request Your Information on the Facebook Website

Facebook download your data

To download your Facebook data using the Facebook website on your desktop browser, follow these steps:

  1. Log in to Facebook.com.
  2. Click on the downwards arrow in the top-right corner and click Settings & Privacy > Settings, or head to Facebook.com/settings.
  3. Click Your Facebook Data.
  4. Go to Download Your Data and click on View.
  5. Select what data points to include by checking the appropriate box nether Deselect All, or maintain the default settings.
  6. Then clickCreate File.
  7. Wait until your data is ready to download. You volition receive a notification when it's washed.
  8. Click on the notification, review the file size, then clickDownload.
  9. Enter your Facebook password to confirm your identity, then wait for the download to complete.

The time information technology takes for Facebook to create a re-create of your information will depend on just how much information you've selected to download.

When it does arrive, your data will be delivered in a Zippo archive.

Customizing Your Facebook Data Download

Facebook download your information

Facebook allows you to sort your downloads and to choose which data to download according to a variety of filters. These include:

  • Date range: Handy if you don't want to trawl through years of data to find something.
  • Format: Choose betweenHTML (default) andJSON. If in doubt, leave it on HTML.
  • Media quality: Higher will mean a larger download size, though this is however going to exist worse than the quality of the original upload due to Facebook's aggressive compression.

You can also exclude certain items from the download. If you want a lean download and don't need your videos and photos, omit them by unchecking them, and sentinel your download size reduce significantly.

Exploring Your Downloaded Facebook Information

Once yous've downloaded your ZIP file, extract information technology and you lot'll run into a basic folder hierarchy that matches up with the items you selected or deselected earlier. Y'all're free to trawl through these folders, but it's a lot easier to open up index.html or index in the root folder.

Facebook data download folders

You tin can click on individual sections to see the information contained inside them, in chronological gild. You lot tin click your name in the top-right corner if yous want to caput back to the index.

Facebook data download photos pages

Other downloadable datasets include:

  • Ads Interests: Essentially topics that Facebook describes equally "most relevant to you". This is worth a look since many of the categories probablydon't use to you.
  • Advertisers who've uploaded a contact list with your information: Facebook describes these as advertisers who "run ads using a contact listing they've uploaded which includes contact info that you've shared with them or with one of their data partners".
  • Advertisers that you've interacted with: Just how advertizing-savvy are you?
  • Messages: Including those you thought you lot'd deleted.
  • Friends: Including juicy categories likeRejected friend requests andRemoved friends yous'd forgotten about.

What's Not Included in Downloaded Facebook Data?

Facebook doesn't give away everything it knows about y'all, just the things you've explicitly shared. There are some limited advertising flags, similar your broader interests and adverts you've interacted with; but these don't tell the whole story.

ProPublica identified over 52,000 unique "attributes" Facebook uses to classify its users. Most of these metrics practise not announced in the Ad Interests section of your Facebook download.

Facebook data download preferences ads

Instead, you'll need to find the listing titled "Interest Categories" in the Ad Preferences department of your Facebook settings to see what Facebook thinks it knows virtually yous. This is inferred data—descriptors used to categorize you based on all manner of interactions with Facebook services.

Other categories may seem oddly empty, depending on which permissions you have enabled and whether you let location tracking in the background, for example.

Facebook Data Locations and Calls History

The social network conspicuously knows more about y'all than information technology includes in the download, and users demand to be aware of this. We don't know what data Facebook collects based on our browsing history—which profiles we visit and the groups nosotros are nigh active in.

Information technology'll exist interesting to see legislation evolve as the authorities go along to probe into Facebook's handling of user data.

Downloading Other Facebook Photos and Videos

And so what if you desire to download a video or photo that you've been tagged in? Facebook does not include these in your information download, since they're not technically yours. There are plenty of legitimate reasons you might want to grab media from the site. Fair use laws protect your correct to utilise this content in many jurisdictions.

We've covered enough of ways to download Facebook photos and videos.

FBDown Facebook Video Downloader

Downloading private Facebook videos is a lilliputian more hard, since you'll need to grab the folio source code and paste information technology into a specific private video downloader. FBDown Private Video Downloader seems like the best bet in this instance.

Is It Time to Delete Facebook?

It'due south fair to say that Facebook has something of an paradigm problem at the moment. Even so, despite massive data breaches and seemingly insidious advertizing practices, more people are using the service than e'er before.

There are plenty of reasons to stop using Facebook right now, but at that place are also reasons to non delete your Facebook. So, the pick is yours. However, regardless of whether you make up one's mind to dump Facebook, there's no reason not to at least download your data.

Image Credit: Christoph Scholz/Flickr

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