How to export and back up your Facebook content

In October, Facebook finally enabled downloading of your Facebook content. I strongly urge you to make a back up, even if you don’t plan to do anything else with it.  If your Facebook account is hacked or deleted somehow, you can always have a copy of your friends list, old status updates, photos etc.

To make the backup:

  1. In Facebook, click on Account then Account Settings
  2. Click on learn more next to Download your information
  3. Enter your password and click Continue
  4. Complete Facebook’s security check and then click Download now

Note: Sometimes you have to wait for Facebook to send you an email with a link and sometimes you will be able to download the file immediately.