"Download Your Stuff" In Facebook

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Bigaldoc
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"Download Your Stuff" In Facebook

Post by Bigaldoc »

I don't know if this recommendation will be helpful to Facebook users or not, so here goes. About once per month I download a Zip file of all my information on Facebook for storage on my local hard drive. There are three reasons I started doing this.

1) A couple of years ago there were allegations that Facebook might DELETE photos or posts that a user has made after some period of time. I've not yet found that to be true, but I'm using the procedure I'll describe in a minute, just in case.

2) Searching for an old post in Facebook can be VERY time consuming, what with having to page through MANY pages of posts, hitting "more" at the bottom of every page. I have been asked a number of times to repeat something I posted and the following procedure makes it an easy "Ctrl-F" search ONE TIME through data stored on my local drive.

3) One of my personal idiosyncrasies is that I like to maintain a simple, plain text file on my hard drive at various times of my Facebook friends. That's difficult if not impossible to do with the current Facebook GUI.

Facebook has a built-in procedure whereby you can "download your stuff" in a Zip file and here's how you do it:

Click on the diamond in the upper right corner of your Facebook screen. In the next window, select Account Settings.
2012-01-05_134139.png
At the bottom of the next screen you will see a link to download ALL of your Facebook data. Click it. The next couple of screens will prompt you through the downloading process and a notification that you will receive an email when your download is ready.
2012-01-05_134220.png
When you download and extract the Zip file to some folder on your hard drive, you'll see that it includes an INDEX file. When you open that file your browser will display a screen containing something like this:
2012-01-05_134606.png
Clicking on any of those SIX links will provide a browser display which is EASILY searchable using Ctrl-F, an image browser or what ever other is your method of choice. It so happens I usually open the FRIENDS link and copy and paste that list to a text file which I date and save to my hard drive for future reference.

Have fun...
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Skitterbug
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Re: "Download Your Stuff" In Facebook

Post by Skitterbug »

Al - do you know whether it collects all your data from every nook and cranny of your Facebook entries for the zip file for download? Would this be a way to see if there are any entries from others that may have been missed?
I don't have much in Facebook and I probably wouldn't be there at all but I enjoy hearing from a daughter who likes to use this social media to keep in touch with the family.
Thanks for your shared information! :smile:
Skitterbug :coffeetime:
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Bigaldoc
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Re: "Download Your Stuff" In Facebook

Post by Bigaldoc »

If someone writes on your "Wall" that is included in the download. But if someone makes a post which you would normally see in your News Feed, no, that is not included in the downloaded file.

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Skitterbug
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Re: "Download Your Stuff" In Facebook

Post by Skitterbug »

Bigaldoc wrote:If someone writes on your "Wall" that is included in the download. But if someone makes a post which you would normally see in your News Feed, no, that is not included in the downloaded file.
So I've begun my "archive" and I see they also list what isn't included. Thanks for giving me a push to do this. It ought to be interesting to see what results I get! It probably won't be a very big file! :laugh:
Skitterbug :coffeetime:
A cup of coffee shared with a friend is happiness tasted and time well spent.

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Bigaldoc
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Re: "Download Your Stuff" In Facebook

Post by Bigaldoc »

By the way, regarding my reason #3 in the first post, Facebook used to show a nice list of your friends, plain text, alphabetical order. They no longer do that. So I get that result by downloading my stuff and clicking friends. This is a blurred version of what I see and I couldn't post a third graphic in the first post. Then, simple copy and paste...
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stuck
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Re: "Download Your Stuff" In Facebook

Post by stuck »

Bigaldoc wrote:2) Searching for an old post in Facebook can be VERY time consuming, what with having to page through MANY pages of posts, hitting "more" at the bottom of every page
I thought the new 'timeline' style profile meant this was no longer the case. Everything is available just by scrolling down and down.

ken

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Bigaldoc
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Re: "Download Your Stuff" In Facebook

Post by Bigaldoc »

Good one, Ken. I didn't know that, since I haven't done any down-scrolling in my new Timeline. Thanks...

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stuck
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Re: "Download Your Stuff" In Facebook

Post by stuck »

Hey, don't thank me, I only know this because stuckling1 pointed it out as one of the benefits of the new layout.

Ken

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stuckling1
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Re: "Download Your Stuff" In Facebook

Post by stuckling1 »

stuck wrote:as one of the benefits of the new layout.

Many people see this as a downside, not a benefit. It's now much easier to say, "hmm, I wonder what Fred was doing in 2007" . Previously this would have taken absolutely donkey's of scroling down, pressing "more stories", scrolling, etc etc.
Now it's just a matter of one click on the timeline jumps you straight to 2007.

People who have stuff they might rather remained burried in the past dislike this because it's easier to surface that stuff.

Just as an example I saw a status (along these lines) from an aquantaince -

"Thanks Facebook for the new Timeline... everyone can now all ooggle at photos from my embarrassing chavy phase in year 9 ... "

While it's important to note that it's not a privacy risk since these photos/posts/whatever were visible all along, nobody would have gone to the effort of trawling through years of past posts to find them, so they were to all intents and purposes invisible, lost in the mists of time.

Consequently, since the New Timeline came along, many Fb friends have had a good few giggles over photos from the past we'd all forgotten about, including "the embarrassing chavy phase in year 9" !

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stuckling1
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Re: "Download Your Stuff" In Facebook

Post by stuckling1 »

On the flipside, however, it has made it a little easier to get rid of ancient content from, for example, "the embarrassing chavy phase in year 9" since it's easier to find and remove the offending posts

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stuck
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Re: "Download Your Stuff" In Facebook

Post by stuck »

stuckling1 wrote:Many people see this as a downside, not a benefit.
Similar stuff here:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2 ... hands.html

Ken