How to download your photos from facebook
Abigail Rogers
Updated on March 29, 2026
There are different methods for downloading pictures and videos from Facebook depending on who posted them. To proceed, make the appropriate selection from the list below and follow the instructions.
If you want to download all of the videos, pictures, and posts you’ve made on Facebook, see: How to download everything you’ve posted on Facebook.
- Download a video you’ve posted.
- Download a video posted on your timeline by you or others.
- Download a photo posted by you or others.
Download a video you’ve posted
- Open Facebook and click the link to your profile at the top of the screen.
- On your profile page, in the top section, click More.
- At the top of the drop-down menu that appears, select Videos.
- Move your mouse cursor over the video you’d like to download, click the button, and select Download HD or Download SD.
The Download HD option is available to select only if the video was created or recorded in HD quality. If it wasn’t, only the Download SD option is available.
If both of these options are missing, the video was uploaded by a friend and you’re tagged in it. You need to follow the steps in the next section instead.
- Your video should appear in a new tab. Move your mouse over the video and click in the lower-right corner.
Download a video posted on your timeline by you or others
If you’re trying to download a shared video from a different online service (e.g., YouTube), see: How to download video from the Internet.
- Log into Facebook and find the video you’d like to download.
- Click the video to make it bigger.
- Right-click the enlarged video and select Show video URL from the drop-down menu that appears.
- Highlight the entire URL and then press Ctrl + C or right-click and select Copy from the drop-down menu.
- Open a new tab by pressing Ctrl + T .
- Paste the URL into the address bar by pressing Ctrl + V , and then press Enter .
- Replace “www” or “web” with “mbasic” in the URL and then press Enter .
- On the next page, click the video to open it in its own window.
- Right-click the video and select Save video as from the drop-down menu that appears.
- Choose a save location and a file name for the video, and then click the button.
Download a photo posted by you or others
- Log into Facebook and find the photo you’d like to download.
- Click the photo so it opens in a larger screen.
- Move your mouse over the photo and then click Options (it’s hard to see) near the bottom-right corner.
- Select Download from the menu that appears.
- You should now see the picture in your downloads folder.
If you’re tired of your photos and videos being impossible to retrieve from Facebook, you’ll be happy to know that they are rolling out a new feature that allows you to download all of them in one big zip file. Here’s how it works.
Since this is a new feature, it’s not yet rolled out to everybody—in fact, we don’t yet have access to it ourselves—so you might want to bookmark this page and come back when the new option shows up for you. If you already see the new options, then let us know in the comments.
How to Download Your Photos and Other Data
First you’ll want to head into the Account menu and choose Account Settings.
Then underneath the “Account Security” link, you should see a new link for “Download Your Information”. If this link isn’t showing up for you yet, then you will just have to keep checking back every so often until it is there.
Assuming the link is there now, you’ll want to click through the Download button.
And again, click through the next Download button…
And then click through the Okay button.
It will take a while for Facebook to put together a file containing all of your information, including your Photos, messages, and other information. Once they have done so, you’ll get an email that says your download is ready, and a link to click.
At this point you’ll have to enter your password again, to make sure it is really you.
Then click the Download Now button, and you’ll be able to finally download the file containing all your photos.
Once the file is downloaded, which might take quite a while, you’ll just have to extract it to access your pictures and other data.
Download Your Photos and Videos – The Video Guide
Here’s a short video that explains how it all works:
In case you’re wondering, we pulled out the steps from the video guide, since some people prefer a step-by-step tutorial instead of a video. Either way, it’s great that we can finally get our photos out of Facebook!
Share:
- Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
Thinking about breaking up with Facebook? Well, you have plenty of reasons to do so.
The social media site has been plagued with security issues for years, and the massive 2018 hack that affected over 50 million users is just one example. Similar privacy issues continue to this day, so it makes sense to stop using the platform. Even Kim took down her personal Facebook account a while back — tap or click here to see why.
Before you break up with Facebook, though, you should figure out what to do with content you’ve uploaded over the years. If you shut it down without a plan, you run the risk of losing all of your content. A new tool makes it easy to transfer your important content off the platform — you just need to know what it is and how to use it.
How to pull the plug on Facebook without losing your content
Breaking up with Facebook is a wise move considering the issues it comes with. Some of us have been with Facebook for years — which means we have several years’ worth of content tucked away on the site.
If you’ve been using Facebook as a digital photo album, you may not have backup copies of old photos and videos you published on your page. Fortunately, you don’t need a backup copy to part ways with Facebook. You can use the newly-expanded Data Transfer Project tool to export your images and videos and store them safely.
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If you’re unfamiliar with the Data Transfer Project, here’s the gist. It was announced back in 2018 with the goal of creating an open-source, service-to-service data portability platform so people could easily move data between online service providers whenever they wanted.
Shortly after the project was announced, Google rolled out a data portability tool to allow you to export images and videos from platforms like Facebook to Google Photos. The capabilities were limited to just Google Photos, though.
That changed earlier this month, however, when Facebook expanded the use of the tool to let you export images and videos directly to Dropbox, too. This makes it easy to move and protect your content to a safe site when pulling the plug on your Facebook account.
If you want to move your photos and videos from Facebook to Dropbox via this tool, it’s easy to do. Let’s take a look.
How to transfer your videos and images
Before you start, you’ll need to confirm that you have a Dropbox account. If you need a Dropbox account, it’s easy to set one up. Just tap or click this link and follow the steps.
Once you’ve set up your account, follow the instructions below. Just make sure you have your Facebook password on hand before you start — you’ll be asked to input it during the process.
To import photos or videos from Facebook.com or the Facebook mobile app:
- Log in to Facebook.com or open the Facebook mobile app.
- Click the downward arrow in the top-right corner (web) or the three-line menu at the bottom of the screen (mobile).
- Select Settings & Privacy.
- Click Settings.
- Scroll down to the Your Facebook Information section.
- Click Transfer a Copy of Your Photos or Videos. You may need to re-enter your password.
- Click the arrow next to Choose Destination and select Dropbox from the dropdown menu.
- Choose whether you want to export your photos or your videos and click Next.
- You can only export one media type at a time. If you’d like to transfer both photos and videos, complete the process for one and repeat the steps to export the other.
- Sign in to your Dropbox account and allow Facebook Data Transfer to access your Dropbox account.
- Click Confirm Transfer. All the photos or videos you’ve uploaded to Facebook will be transferred to Dropbox. You can monitor progress on the “Transfer a Copy of Your Photos and Videos” page of your Facebook settings, and Facebook will send you a notification when the transfer is complete.
Once the transfer is complete, the photos and videos you imported will be saved in a new folder in your Dropbox account.
Facebook isn’t the best place for keeping your photos, but its convenience makes it a decent space for sharing them. If you want to download a photo you’ve uploaded (or even one your friend has uploaded), here’s how.
Download Individual Photos
Find the photo you want to download on Facebook. This can be any photo you can view on Facebook, no matter whether yours, a friend’s, or a complete stranger’s that has made their photos public. Just remember, unless you took the photo yourself, it doesn’t belong to you and you can’t do whatever you want with it.
Hover over the image until the photo’s (and the Like, Comment, and Share buttons at the bottom) appear.
Click the “Options” link in the bottom right corner, and then select the “Download” command.
The photo should now download in the highest resolution Facebook has on their servers.
On mobile apps, the process is similar. Open the photo you want to save, tap the three little dots in the top right corner, and then tap the “Save Photo” command.
Download All Your Photos At Once
Facebook also has a tool that lets you download all your data—including wall posts, chat messages, About You information, and, of course, photos. On the Facebook site, click the downward facing arrow in the top right corner, and then select the “Settings” option. You can also go directly to
Click “Download a Copy of Your Facebook Data” at the bottom of the “General Account Settings” page.
Next, click the “Start My Archive” button.
You need to enter your password to verify. You’re then told that it will take Facebook a few moments to gather your data, and that they’ll email you when the archive is ready.
When the email arrives, click the link it provides.
On the resulting page, click the “Download” button, type your password again, and your archive will start downloading. If you’ve used Facebook a lot, the download could be quite large. Mine was 1.58 GB!
The archive downloads as a .ZIP file. Extract it, and then navigate to the “Photos” folder.
Here, you’ll find subfolders with every album and photo you’ve ever posted to Facebook. There are also HTML files you can open to show a rough, offline version of Facebook in your browser that might make the photos easier to scan.
It might take a while to dig through and find the right photos, but they will all be there.
Don’t lose all your snaps just because you’re scared of Mark Zuckerberg hoovering up all your data
- Sun Reporter
- 21 Jan 2020, 16:04
- Updated : 21 Jan 2020, 16:09
IF you have decided to wipe off embarrassing 2008 Facebook photos we show you how to save and download them first.
Facebook makes it possible to scoop up all of your snaps in one go, although the feature isn’t exactly obvious.
Many people use Facebook as a giant photo gallery.
In 2014, Facebook revealed that users had uploaded more than 250 billion photos.
So before you kill the app and delete your Facebook account, you’ll need to download your Facebook pics first.
How to save all your Facebook photos
Facebook has an archive feature that lets you download all your Facebook data.
This creates a huge file that you can save to your computer.
So if you ever delete Facebook, you’ll still have access to all of your content:
The important point is that this folder will contain all of your photos that you’ve ever uploaded to Facebook (unless you’ve deleted them).
Sadly, if you’ve got nice high-quality photos on Facebook, they’ll be massively downgraded during the download.
Facebook will resize and and compress your photo uploads to much smaller file sizes.
If you want to download the original high-resolution snaps, you’re stuck – Facebook doesn’t offer this, and it really sucks.
STEP 1
Log into your Facebook account and go into account settings
STEP 2
Under General Account Settings, scroll to the bottom and click the Download a copy link.
STEP 3
Once the next screen appears select Start My Archive. You’ll get an email when it’s ready to download.
STEP 4
When you receive the email with the title, Your Facebook download is ready, click the link provided.
STEP 5
Download the zip file of data from your profile and select a location for it to go on your computer.
MOST READ IN TECH
PLAY THE GAME
GOLDEN APPLE
SPACED OUT
BEZOS BUCKS
PHARAOH’S FINEST
PLAN-IT!
In the future, if you’re uploading photos to Facebook, make sure to keep copies stored on your phone or computer to avoid having them ruined by Facebook’s compression software.
Are you worried about how Facebook is handling your personal info? Let us know in the comments.
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With all of the recent concerns in the news about Facebook privacy, many people are considering leaving the site behind because of those issues. Some members are unhappy because they feel they are addicted to it. Perhaps you feel like you’re on Facebook overload or are upset because Facebook owns your memories, especially your pictures.
If you are afraid to lose the pictures and other memories Facebook stores for you, there is a way to get those pictures off of the site and onto your computer.
Even if you are not planning to abandon your Facebook presence, you may have reason to download some or all of your pictures.
This process makes it possible to save any pictures from Facebook onto your computer. If other people have posted photos you would like to keep, you can download those as well. Remember, those pictures are the property of the person who took them, so be careful how you use them to avoid legal issues.
Downloading a Single Photo from the Web
To get one picture, first open the image and hover your mouse over the picture you want to download.
Then click on the word “options.”
Choose “Download” from the list of options, and the photo will download to your computer.
Downloading a Single Photo from the Facebook App
If you are using Facebook’s mobile app, and you come across a picture you want to save, first bring up the photo you want to save.
Click on the three dots in the upper right corner.
Choose “Save Photo.”
Downloading All Your Photos and Other Data
If you decide to download all of your photos, just in case of a problem, there is a reasonably quick process from the Web version of Facebook on your computer. The files you will receive may be huge, depending on how much you’ve used Facebook, and may not work well on a mobile device.
1. Click on the arrow on the right side of the blue Facebook bar at the top of the screen.
2. Select Settings.
3. Click on “Download a copy of your Facebook data” at the bottom of the list.
4. Select “Download Archive.” It will ask you to enter your password to verify your identity and protect your privacy.
5. Click on “Start archive.”
6. When it is done creating the files, you will receive a notification and an email that it is complete. I had 268 MB of data, and it took less than ten minutes to create.
7. Enter your password again. A zip file will download to your computer. It will take a few minutes to download.
The files you receive in that zip folder include everything you’ve ever put on Facebook. There are folders for the photos, videos, messages, and your feed.
8. Extract the files to the destination of your choice. This process takes the most time. I extracted all of the data, but if you only want the pictures, it is possible to extract only specific folders. Extracting my data took about fifteen minutes.
When you have downloaded your data, you should consider encrypting the information when you are not looking at it for an extra layer of protection.
Conclusion
Even if you are not planning to leave Facebook, downloading a copy of your pictures will guarantee you have access to them in the future. Going through this process is simple and may help prevent a lot of headaches later.
Tracey Rosenberger spent 26 years teaching elementary students, using technology to enhance learning. Now she’s excited to share helpful technology with teachers and everyone else who sees tech as intimidating.
Facebook opened its doors to students at elite schools in 2004, and the entire world in 2006. Unsurprisingly, many of the now billions of users on Facebook have over a decade’s worth of photos, videos, and posts on the social network.
If you’ve been thinking about leaving Facebook (we have no idea why that might be on your mind) but have been worried about losing that trove of content you may only have on Facebook, here’s good news: You can actually download everything you’ve ever uploaded to Facebook.
How to recover your photos
- Go to Facebook.com on a computer and click the little arrow at the top-right of the screen:
- Click on “Settings & Privacy,” then “Settings”
- In the top left corner click “Your Facebook Information” and you’ll see an option labeled “Download your information” — click that.
- You can choose your format, your preferred date range, and what information you’d like to download. Then click “Create file.”
- Facebook will send you a notification when your information is available to download. In the meantime, it’ll appear as “pending” in the “Available files” section of the “Download your information” section.
- Be patient: If you’ve been on Facebook for a long time, it’ll be a large file. (I joined in 2005, and my archive was 925 MB.)
- The file structure doesn’t make a lot of sense, and there will likely be duplicates, but it should all be there.
The bad news is that Facebook scrubs all the metadata from the photos, meaning if you were to upload them to Google Photos or Apple Photos, it’ll look like they were all taken the day you got your download from Facebook. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than losing all the photos forever.
If you want to take the final plunge and purge yourself from the platform entirely, here’s what to do:
How to delete your Facebook account
It’s quite simple: click this link (which is quite difficult to find on Facebook itself.) You have to re-enter your password again and fill out a captcha. After you press the OK button, Facebook will then email you to confirm the deletion process has started. Facebook says it can take up to 90 days for all your data to be deleted from its servers, and to avoid logging back into the site for a few days after you’ve requested deletion, as it will, bizarrely, reinstate your account.
But make sure to delete the app everywhere—on your phone, your tablets, smart TVs, fridges, or whatever other crazy places you’ve logged into Facebook over the years—and it wouldn’t hurt to delete all the apps you have connected to Facebook (that could still have data on you) before you delete your account.
What does Facebook know about you? Learn how to download your Facebook data to find out.
First, it was Cambridge Analytica. Now, it’s the ugly truth memo. What’s next?
If you are finally ready to quit Facebook once and for all, you should take your data — all your posts and messages, photos and videos, friends and groups and so on — with you before you go. Thankfully, Facebook makes it easy to download your data. So easy, in fact, that it’s worth doing even if you aren’t planning on deleting your Facebook account just to see what information Facebook has collected about you.
Download Facebook data
You’ll need to use the web version of Facebook and not the mobile app to request your data. Here’s how:
- Click the little triangle in the top right of any Facebook page and select Settings.
- You should be taken to the General view of Settings. If not, click General at the top of the left-hand column.
- At the bottom of the General Account Settings page, click Download a copy of your Facebook data.
After making your request, you can sit back and wait for Facebook to email you a link to download your data. If you don’t get emails from Facebook, then check your Facebook notifications. Either way, you’ll get a link to download a ZIP file of your Facebook data.
What’s in your Facebook data
It was somewhere between eye-opening and frightening to see the information Facebook had about me. I’ve been on Facebook for over a decade but I’m not a heavy user — much more of a lurker than sharer — and Facebook knew plenty about me.
My data was organized into four folders: html, messages, photos and videos. In the html folder, the ads file was illuminating; it showed the topics Facebook thinks are of interest to me along with all the ads I ever clicked on and a long list of advertisers that have my contact information. Similarly, the apps file showed an insanely long list of apps that I allowed to access my Facebook account. The timeline file contained a copy of my entire timeline activity, and the messages file had all of my Facebook Messenger conversations.
Meanwhile, the messages folder had copies of each individual Messenger conversation. The friends file was interesting because is showed not only the full list of my Facebook friends but also the date I befriended each.
Lastly, the photos and videos folders had copies of every photo and video I shared on Facebook. There were also photos and video files in the html folder, each of which opened a web page where I could easily scan the photos or videos I posted on Facebook, along with the comments they garnered.
Facebook has one of the biggest online photo directory with over 350 million photos uploaded every single day. With such big photo directory and full control over your photos, it is likely you may like to know how you can download your photos.
Fortunately, Facebook makes it quite easy to download photos. You can easily download a single photo or all of your photos right from your Facebook profile.
However, there is always some space for improvement and with the help of Third-party tools you can gain some great control over what you can download.
In this tutorial, we are going to show you how you can download a single photo, an Album or all of your Facebook photos.
Download a Single Facebook Photo on Desktop and Android
It is actually quite simple to download a single image, all you need to do is Click on the image to preview it and then click on “Options” located below it. From the options, click on “Download” and the photo will be downloaded with the highest available resolution.
On Android, just open the picture by tapping on it and then tap on the Menu button (it’s the three vertical dots) located at the right corner of the screen. From the menu, tap on “Save photo” and the photo will be saved.
Download All of Your Facebook Photos
Facebook also natively lets you download a copy of all your Facebook data including all the Photos. This is handy if you don’t want to involve any third-party in the process, but you will be bound to download all Facebook data, such as, posts, friends, messages, Videos and Photos, etc. (handy if you need to Delete your Facebook Account)
To download all your Data, click on the Upside down arrow located at the top right corner of the window. From the menu, click on “Settings”.
In General Account Settings, you will see the option of “Download a copy of your Facebook data”, click on it.
On the next page, click on “Start My Archive” and you will be prompted to provide your Facebook password. Enter the password again and click on Submit, you will be again prompted to confirm the Archive, click on “Start My Archive” here and Facebook will start creating your Archive.
This may take some time depending on how much data you have, your archive will be sent to you via email and you can download from there. If you don’t have too much data, you can also just refresh the same page after 2-5 minutes and most probably your archive will be ready to download.
Note: The archived data is compressed, so the Photos downloaded this way will also be compressed. The quality of the photos might be affected in the process.
It will be in .zip format and when extracted, you will see a separate “Photos” folder with separate folders inside it for each Album.
Caution: Be Careful with the information you have downloaded as it contains all your personal Facebook information. Now that it is on your PC, anyone can access it without any need of Facebook password. If you don’t need it, then deleting it will be a better option. Furthermore, make sure you delete it permanently as information is not deleted permanently with the standard Windows Delete method and can be recovered using proper tools.
Download Your Facebook Photos using Third-party tools
If you don’t mind sharing your Facebook info, then there are many third-party tools that will let you download Facebook photos with complete control. You can download all your Facebook photos or just required albums and photos.
In this Tutorial, we are going to use the web based tool called Pick&Zip. It is a simple to use photo and video downloading service that supports Facebook, Instagram and Vine. It interacts with Facebook just like any other app you use, it will require you to login with Facebook and will ask for basic permissions.
Log in to Pick&Zip
You can click on “Facebook download” button on the upper right corner of the Pick&Zip website homepage to log in and provide the permissions.
Once logged in, you will see an option to “Find My Photos and Videos” in green located at the bottom left corner of the window. Click on it, and Pick&Zip will find all your Photos and Videos and arrange them in its web interface.
You will see all your Videos and Photos under proper tab, such as Tagged and Albums that will contain all Tagged photos and All your albums respectively.
Download Select Photos
To download Photos, just click on Each photo in “Tagged” and “Albums” tabs that you would like to download and they will be selected. You can also click on “Select All” button below to select all pictures in a specific album.
When you are selecting, click on “Download” tab and in there, click on “Download My Selection”. You will be prompted to select the format, if you don’t know which format to select, then “.Zip” is recommended. Your files will be loaded and then you can click on “Save” to download them.
Download All the Items
If you want to download all the photos, both tagged and in your Albums, then you don’t need to select any photos and directly click on “Download” tab. Here, click on “Download all items” and follow the instructions to download everything.
The above mentioned Steps should be enough to provide full control over downloading your Facebook photos. If you have any questions or know any other interesting way to download Facebook photos, let us know in the comments below.
Filed in Photo-Video >Web . Read more about Facebook and Photos.
