Download your own Facebook account or page for archiving via Facebook

Facebook provides the ability to download all your own content. It is the simplest and least time-consuming way to ensure you have downloaded all your own content.

• no extra software or technical knowledge needed to retrieve your own Facebook content;
• all own photos, videos, posts, comments, and stories are downloaded. For a Facebook page, you can also choose to download messages.

• only your own content is downloaded. Shared posts and third-party comments, as well as like counts and reactions, are not included;
• the look-and-feel resembles Facebook, but is not identical.

Workflow

Step 1: log in to Facebook

Log in to Facebook with your email and password.

Step 2a: request a copy of your account

• Go to Settings and privacy (rightmost button in the navigation bar) > Settings

• a new screen with settings will appear. Click on the Meta Accounts Center box

• You will land on a page where you can manage your Meta accounts. In the menu, choose 'Your information and permissions' and then 'Download your information'.

• A new window will appear. Press the 'Download or transfer information' button.

• Select the accounts you want to archive. If you also have an Instagram account, you can download its data here too.

• Indicate that you want to download all available information.

• Choose 'Download to device'.

• Select format HTML and media quality as high. Optionally, set a time period. Choose 'all time' if you want to download all your data. By default, the period is set to the past year. When done, click the Create files button.

• Facebook will now prepare a download. You will receive a notification when your data is ready.

Step 2b: request a copy of your page

• go to your page and in the left sidebar under Manage Page choose Settings

• under Your information select Download your information

• you’ll land on a new page. Check the elements you want to download (at minimum: Posts, Photos and videos and Page profile information). For example, if you never organized an event or used stories, it's not useful to download those.

• Select format HTML and media quality ‘high’. Optionally, set a period. Only the posts and media from that period will be downloaded. Click the Create files button when done.
• Facebook will notify you when your download is ready.

Result

Once the archive is downloaded, you will receive a ZIP file containing various folders and a central index.html file.

You can view the archive content through the index.html file.

Opening the index.html overview page in a browser gives you access to the Facebook archive.

Authors

Nastasia Vanderperren with contributions from Rony Vissers (meemoo)