How to Transfer Your Facebook Photos and Videos to Another Service
Send all those photos and videos you’ve posted on Facebook to Google Photos, Dropbox, and other services.
You may have posted a lot of photos and videos on Facebook over the years. If you want to export those files from the social network to another program, a built-in Facebook tool helps you easily transfer your photos and videos to any of four external services: Google Photos, Dropbox, Koofr, and Backblaze B2.
By housing your files in one of these other services, you can view them on any device and download them directly to your computer or mobile phone. Let’s look at each option.
Google Photos
To use Google Photos, you’ll need a Google Account. Most Android devices already come with Google Photos built in, but you can grab the app from Google Play if needed. iPhone users can download it from Apple’s App Store. Whether you’re in the app or on the web, Google Photos allows you to view images by photos and album, or by ones suggested for you. Open Google Photos to see what photos and videos are already stored there.
Initiate Photo Transfer on Facebook
Transferring your photos and videos works the same from the Facebook website and app, though the initial steps to access the feature differ. On the web, click the down arrow in the upper right and select Settings. From the app, click the hamburger icon in the upper or lower right and select Settings & Privacy > Settings.
At the Settings screen, go to Your Facebook Information > Transfer a Copy of Your Photos or Videos. Enter your Facebook password at the next screen and click Continue.
At the screen to Transfer a Copy of Your Photos or Videos, click the drop-down button under Choose Destination and select Google Photos.
Choose whether you want to transfer your photos or your videos. Click Next and then choose the Google Account you wish to use (if you have more than one). Sign in if prompted. The first time you do this, you’ll have to grant Facebook access to your Google Photos library. Click Allow.
You’re then taken back to Facebook and asked to confirm the transfer. Click Confirm Transfer to continue.
The transfer of your photos or videos kicks off. At the same time, you’ll receive an email confirming the transfer. If you wish to stop the transfer for any reason, click the Stop button. Otherwise, just hang tight and let it continue. After the process finishes, a notice appears in Facebook, and the status changes to Completed.
Open your Google Photos page and you should now see the photos or videos that have been transferred. Once your photos or videos are transferred, you can repeat the process to move the other set of files. So if you transferred your photos, you can then transfer your videos, or vice versa.
Dropbox
Sign into your Dropbox account to view any existing photos and videos already stored there.
Next, go to Facebook and repeat the steps to transfer your photos or videos, but this time select Dropbox.
Choose whether to transfer photos or videos. Sign into your Dropbox account if prompted and select Allow to give Facebook the necessary permissions for Dropbox. Confirm the transfer.
Go back to Dropbox. Open a folder called Apps and then a subfolder called Facebook Data Transfer and look for your transferred photos or videos.
Koofr
Though not as well known as services like Google Photos and Dropbox, Koofr is a file storage service based in Europe but available around the world. You get 2GB of storage for free with the ability to get more by referring friends to the service and by upgrading to any of the many paid tiers. As a bonus to users, Koofr allows you to store up to 15GB of Facebook photos and videos beyond your account quota. After you’ve set up an account on Koofr, return to Facebook. Go through the transfer process again and select Koofr as the destination.
Sign into your Koofr account if prompted. Allow the necessary permissions and click the Confirm Transfer button. Wait for the transfer to complete. Go back to Koofr and open a folder called Data Transfer. Check for the transferred photos or videos in that folder.
Backblaze B2
Backblaze B2 is an enterprise-grade file storage and backup service designed for businesses but also available to individual consumers. The first 10GB of storage are free. If you need more, you pay as you go depending on the amount of data you upload, both initially and on a monthly basis. After creating an account, you’ll need to create a bucket to serve as a container for your online files. Then, return to Facebook for the photo and video transfer and choose Backblaze B2 as the destination.
At the next screen, enter the Key ID and Application Key created from your Backblaze B2 account. You’ll find those at the App Key section at your Backblaze account page. Click Next and then confirm the transfer.
After the transfer is complete, return to your Backblaze B2 account page. Click the entry for Browse files, select your bucket, and then look for a folder named “facebook-data-transfer-XXXXXXXX” with the eight X characters replaced by a sequence of numbers. Open that folder to a subfolder called Photo Transfer or Video Transfer to see the transferred files.
Finally, you can opt to download your Facebook photos and videos to your computer instead of transferring them to another online service. You can then store them and upload them anywhere you wish. To do this in Facebook, return to the page to Transfer a Copy of Your Photos or Videos. Click the link at the top that says Download Your Information.
At the next screen, confirm that the option for your photos and videos is the only one checked. Review the criteria at the top to select a specific date range if necessary, the format (HTML is the default), and the quality (High, Medium, or Low). Click the button to Create File.
After the files have been generated, click the heading for Available Copies and then click the Download button. Save the generated ZIP file to your computer. Unzip the file. Open the extracted index.html file to see thumbnails of the downloaded photos and videos. You can then drill through all the extracted folders to find and view the specific files.
Originally published at https://www.pcmag.com.
