Facebook collects a large amount of personal data (photos, videos, messages etc.) and, in case of closure or blocking of the account, all these data are in danger of being lost forever.Facebook becomes the owner of this material and can do whatever it wants with it, even if it leaves users the possibility to download all personal data at any time (at least as long as the account is active and accessible without problems).
For those who use the social network a lot it is therefore essential make a backup of your important Facebook dataso you can always have it on hand private messages, friends list, contacts, photos, posts shared on the wall and published videos. We advise you to make this backup at least once a month or, if we are big users of the blue social network, once a week.
READ ALSO -> Lost, stolen or compromised Facebook account: how to fix
1) Download personal data from Facebook
In order to get a backup of all Facebook we will first have to get a PC or a Mac, open a browser and log in to Facebook siteusing the same account used in the Facebook mobile app.
After accessing the site, click on the top right on the profile picture, click on Settings and privacywe press on Settings and let’s go to the menu Your information on Facebook.
In the new screen we press on the item View present next to the menu Download your information and we select HTML as the file format, we select Alta as the quality of multimedia content and we choose Personalized to choose the backup dates (from the first registration to the present day).
After selecting the backup parameters we have to choose what to include in it; in the section Popular downloads we can quickly select messages, Reels, posts, stories (those still available) and personal information; the associated multimedia files will also be downloaded for each element.
If we wanted to get specific and choose what to include and what to discard from the Facebook backup, simply expand the section Select the information to download and tick the items and elements to be included in the backup one by one.
Download the backup to PC
Once the backup items have been selected, scroll down the page and press the button Request a download; the operation will be started by Facebook: the operation could take from a few minutes up to 24-48 hours, depending on the time period requested within the backup.
At the end of the collection operation by Facebook, all we have to do is take us back on the path Settings -> Your Facebook information -> Download your informationpress on the tab Available files at the top right, press the button Downloadenter the Facebook password (for security reasons) and finally press on Confirmation.
The file will not remain available forever: after a few days the download will expire and we will have to repeat the entire operation to generate a new backup link.
Open Facebook backup file
At the end of the download we will have a compressed file in ZIP format containing all the requested information; to open this file we can use a free and open source program such as 7-Zip o PeaZip.
By opening the compressed file with a suitable program we will have access to all the backup folders of which we have requested a copy. If we want to recover a photo, just open the folder fileswhile messages can be viewed in the folders posts.
2) Transfer a copy of the information to Facebook
In addition to downloading the backup in the form of a compressed folder, we can transfer some Facebook information and multimedia files to other web services. The social network allows in fact associate a Google account, a Dropbox account or a Koofr account to save a copy of your personal data.
To take us to the transfers screen we open the Facebook site, press the top right on the profile picture, click on Settings and privacy -> Settingswe select the item View next to the menu Transfer a copy of your information and choose the service we want to use for this backup.
By choosing Google Photo o Koofr all Facebook photos and videos will be transferred to a photo service; choosing instead Google Docs o Dropbox we will be able to save all our notes and posts written on Facebook.
After choosing the service, we select which elements to include in the transfer and connect with the chosen service, using the login credentials of an owner account. At the end of the operation our personal files (photos, videos, posts and notes) will be copied to the cloud service chosen automatically.
The backup will remain up and running as long as we leave the active link: New messages, videos and photos will also be automatically uploaded to the service, so you can access them even in the event of an account lockout or identity theft.
Conclusions
Facebook allows you to backup your personal data without using external programs or extensionsjust access the personal information screen and choose whether to download the data to our PC (as a ZIP compressed file) or to synchronize some of your personal data with very famous cloud services such as Google and Dropbox.
To learn more we can also read our guides on how to synchronize the address book with Facebook on Android and iPhone with photos and profile info and how import Email addresses and Facebook contacts into Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Outlook.