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Tuesday 6 January 2015

How To: Download your Facebook personal data

How to: Download your Facebook personal data



Have you ever wondered what Facebook really know about you? Well, as it turns out, you can find out!

Hidden away in your user settings, there is an option to download all of the data that Facebook has gathered about you. I did this a while ago and was quite amazed as to how much information they actually had. I've had to find my way around the new menus to be able to share this information with you now as they've made it even less obvious to find.

Ultimately, you want to go into your settings on a PC (not sure if you can get to it on a mobile device) and find it there, but here is the step-by-step.

Step 1: Locate the settings

At the top right of your Facebook site, click on the icon that displays a padlock with horizontal lines to the right of it:


Click "See More Settings" at the bottom of the menu that pops up:


Step 2: Find the option to download your Facebook data

On the next screen, click "General" on the menu to the left of the page:


On this page you will find what you are looking for. Underneath the "Temperature" preference, you will see a link to Download a copy of your Facebook data:


When I last clicked this, Facebook told me that it would take some time to compile my data and notify me when it was ready to download. After a short while I got the notification and was able to download all the data Facebook has stored from my account. Every message, every picture, every "like", everything.

It's well worth a look to see what Facebook knows about you.

- Al