How to download your Facebook data

One of the remarkably strong fundamentals that Facebook was built upon is how much people (well, most of them, if not all) like sharing their personal life with the people around them. This led to the age of a hugely interconnected world with "one graph to rule'em all" - the Social Graph, a term coined by Mark Zuckerberg which means "the global mapping of everybody and how they're related". 

On Facebook, people share their state of mind, likes and dislikes, photos of cherished moments of their lives, who they befriend etc. 

Apparently, Facebook has a great treasure-trove in the form of private data of it's users which makes it better positioned for targeted advertising as opposed to the rival Google. At this juncture, what Facebook strives to achieve is greater user satisfaction at every aspect. As users evolve, they demand better controls. 



As a step in this direction, Facebook now allows its users to download their data posted on their Facebook profiles. You can now download everything from your profile such as wall posts, messages, friend lists and photos etc. in a zip file.

The whole process is very simple. Here's how to do this:

• Login to your Facebook account.
• At the top right hand corner, click on "Account".
• Click on "Account Settings".
• Under "Settings" tab you will see "Download Your Information", next to which is "learn more", click on that.
• You would land up on a page where you need to authenticate yourself. Enter your password, if prompted. 
• To prevent any potential misuse, Facebook sends the data download link via email to your designated email address. If you're not on the computer that you usually use, you may need to go through the verification process of solving friend photo captcha or SMS captcha on your mobile phone.

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