How to make sure you don't lose your Facebook photos

If you're thinking of deleting your Facebook account, here's how to save your photos first (Photo: Shutterstock)If you're thinking of deleting your Facebook account, here's how to save your photos first (Photo: Shutterstock)
If you're thinking of deleting your Facebook account, here's how to save your photos first (Photo: Shutterstock)

With ongoing controversy surrounding Facebook, many users are leaving the social media platform in an attempt to protect their personal information.

If you're thinking of jumping ship, don't forget to take the important things with you - namely a potential stockpile of more than a decade's worth of photos.

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You can download your Facebook photos all at once, or album by album - here's how.

How to download all of your photos

It is surprisingly easy to download all of your Facebook photos in one go.

Simply go to 'Settings' (in the top right hand corner dropdown menu) and click 'Download a copy of your Facebook data'.

From there, you can request a downloadable archive of your Facebook activity. This will include a copy of your timeline from the very beginning, an archive of your private message conversations and all of the photos and videos you have ever uploaded.

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Request the download by confirming your account log in details when prompted, and the site will send your data download to the email address linked to your Facebook account.

We share so many of our precious moments on Facebook via photos and videos (Photo: Shutterstock)

This email may take a little while to arrive, but once you have it you can download all of your photos and other information with the click of a button.

The data is automatically separated by type, so you can quickly and easily find all of your photos.

How to download a specific photo album

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If you would rather download your photos straight from Facebook, or only want to preserve a few albums, saving them is quick and straightforward.

Click on the photo album you want to download, hit the cog symbol in the top right hand corner and select 'Download album'.

Facebook will then prepare your album for download and alert you with a website notification when they are ready. Click on the notification to automatically download your album onto your computer.

Be prepared to organise

Particularly if you are downloading all of your Facebook photos at once via the data dump route, it is worth bearing in mind that your photo albums will no longer be named in the same way they were on Facebook itself.

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The dates and times of when photos were taken or uploaded to Facebook will vanish, meaning that you will have to know when you took your snaps, if you want to save them in date order.

It may be worth using the original Facebook photo albums for reference to organise your downloaded photos before you delete your account.