Archiving Facebook Data

Facebook has now made it possible to download and archive all of your Facebook data: status updates, messages, photos and profile information. It's yours after all, and provides you with a day-to-day history of your own life.

Here's how:

In Facebook, click Account, then click Account Settings.



Click on Learn more to the right of Download Your Information.



Click the Download button at the bottom of the page (you'll then get a second Download button; click that one too).



It will take awhile. Facebook will send you an email when the download is complete. It will be a .zip file (here are instructions on using j-Zip to open a zip file). The extracted files will include an html folder, an images folder, and a file called index.html, which you use to access the rest of the information. Open the index.html in your browser, and you will be able to access profile, wall, photos, friends, notes, events and messages from here.

Thanks to Darrin Goodman for the tip!