Back up your Facebook profile

Sign into Facebook and then open the Account menu on the top right. Choose Account Settings. At the next screen, scroll down to the Download your information option and click the ‘learn more’ link. At the next screen (shown in step 2), click the Download button and then, when the dialogue box appears, click Download again. Facebook displays a message saying that it’ll take time to gather all your info – if you’ve got loads, it may take an hour or two. Click OK. Facebook goes off to do its thing and displays a little ‘Pending’ message.

When Facebook has finished its gathering, all your information will be put it into a compressed zip file. When it’s ready an email will be sent to the account you use to sign into Facebook: open this message and click the link in the body. The default web browser will open and you’ll be asked to sign into Facebook again, and then after that, to retype your password. Next, click the Download button, click Save, choose a destination for the file (like the desktop) and click the Save button again to start the download.

Right-click the downloaded file and choose Extract All from the pop-up menu. When the wizard opens, click Next and follow it through, accepting the default options (unless you have reason to do otherwise). At the end, click Finish. Find the extracted folder (it’ll be in the same location as the original compressed download) and open it. Open the folder inside that and you’ll see your Facebook information, photos and so on. Double-click on the Index icon and your web browser will load your Facebook profile as if it was a website, together with links to your photos, messages and so on.