How to Download Your Facebook Data
Short answer: Use Meta's Accounts Center to export your Facebook information. Choose only Posts, Groups, and Comments and reactions, set the date range to All time and the format to JSON, and the export stays small and arrives faster.
Step by step
- Open the Meta Accounts Center. In the left menu, click Your information and permissions, then Export your information.
- Click the blue Create export button.
- On Choose a profile, pick your Facebook account.
- On Choose where to export, click Export to device.
- On Confirm your export, click Customize information, clear every checkbox, then check only Posts, Groups, and Comments and reactions (under Your Facebook activity). Skip Messages and Data logs, they make the export much bigger and slower.
- Still on that screen, set Date range to All time, Format to JSON, and Media quality to Low (smaller download, the scan only reads text).
- Click Start export. Meta notifies you when it’s ready.
- Go back to Export your information and click Download next to your profile. You have 4 days before it expires.
Meta defaults to Last year and HTML. Change both before you click Start export, otherwise your export only covers one year. Customizing as described above keeps a Facebook export small. Without it, exports can run to hundreds of MB because they include your photos and messages.
Why download it before a job search
Your posts and comments go back to the day you joined. Facebook also has a "Limit past posts" setting that changes all your past public posts to Friends in one step, which is worth knowing before a job search.
Some screening vendors publicly describe social media lookbacks of up to seven years, so PruneSocial uses a seven-year review window for eligible dated activity. Actual employer and screening-provider practices can vary. Your own export is the most complete way to see what's there. See the sources and methodology.
What's in the file that matters
You don't need to unzip anything or dig through folders. The scan reads: your posts file (profile_posts_1 or your_posts__check_ins__photos_and_videos_1) comments, and your group posts and comments. Everything else in the export, including photos and messages, stays on your computer.
Can’t find the ZIP on your phone, or the scanner can’t read it? See fixes for common export problems.
Facebook likes are in a separate place
Facebook’s export lists the things you reacted to, but it doesn’t include the text of what you liked. PruneSocial screens the names of the Pages and people whose posts you reacted to, which can catch a like of a hate group or explicit Page, but it can’t read the posts themselves. To review them yourself, open Facebook’s Activity log, then Your Facebook activity, then Comments and reactions, then Likes and reactions. Where you see tick boxes you can select several and remove them; otherwise use the three-dot menu on each row. Pages you’ve liked are listed separately. Facebook changes its menus often, so the names may differ slightly on your device.
Check your Facebook history when your export arrives
Not requested yet? Start with the export checklist. Drop the ZIP into PruneSocial and your posts and comments from the last seven years are scored against published screening categories, with a recommended fix for anything flagged.