How long does facebook archive take to download

It wasn't immediately clear how I could purge this data from Facebook's memory but by going here, I was able to select contacts to remove. On Sunday, the company directed CNN to a new blog post addressing data related to calls and texts. Facebook stressed that it never sells this data and that it does not "collect the content of your text messages or calls. You are always in control of the information you share with Facebook.

Related: Facebook stock drops after Zuckerberg apology. How to control other data was more straightforward -- like manually revoking the Facebook app's permissions that I once authorized to access my Facebook information. Same goes for advertisers. To take myself off customer lists for certain -- or all -- advertisers, I simply needed to "uncheck" them via the Preferences page. The key is understanding all of the information that Facebook is gathering.

In all this, I came to the realization that the act of Facebooking should not be a passive sport. How to find out what Facebook knows about you. CNNMoney Sponsors. Upon downloading and unarchiving the archive, data from your Facebook profile is available within specific folders for pictures you have shared on service, videos you uploaded to Facebook and more.

For instance, if you want to retrieve a specific picture or video you posted to Facebook, click Photos or Videos in the left-hand column and then click the media thumbnail. The photo or video will open it in its original resolution, and you can right-click to make a copy of the media file in another folder on your computer.

Data included as part of your Facebook archive may change over time as the company introduces or kills features so best thing you double-check their support document prior to downloading your archive. Let us know what you think about this how-to in the comments below and keep those tutorial suggestions coming via tips iDownloadBlog. How to download your Facebook data 1 Log in to Facebook on your computer and access Account Settings : click at the top right of any Facebook page and select Settings.

RELATED: How to download your Twitter archive Data included in your Facebook archive Your Facebook archive can contain copies of your Timeline information, messages you have exchanged in chats, posts, photos and videos you have shared, anything from the Info section of your profile and more.

Your archive does not include previously deleted content. Facebook notes that some information may be unavailable. It includes any updates or changes you made in the past and what is currently in the About section of your Timeline. Account Status History: The dates when your account was reactivated, deactivated, disabled or deleted.

Active Sessions: All stored active sessions, including date, time, device, IP address, machine cookie and browser information. Ads Clicked: Dates, times and titles of ads clicked limited retention period. Address: Your current address or any past addresses you had on your account. Ad Topics: A list of topics that you may be targeted against based on your stated likes, interests and other data you put in your Timeline.

Alternate Name: Any alternate names you have on your account ex: a maiden name or a nickname. Apps: All of the apps you have added. Birthday Visibility: How your birthday appears on your Timeline. Some of them made sense, as they were brands whose Pages I already Liked.

But some of the topics were downright irrelevant and, therefore, befuddling -- like "fishing bait" and "organic compound. But there was also a section for advertisers with my contact information, many of whom were brands and musical artists whose Pages I hadn't Liked. I had to wonder, why do the Smashing Pumpkins and Beck have my contact information? I hadn't listened to either, really, since my first year of college when -- at risk of dating myself -- Facebook didn't exist yet. It raises questions about just how accessible this information is, and how widespread the availability of our data might be.

While likely a bad actor, I'm inclined to believe that Cambridge Analytica isn't alone in the way it allegedly synthesized Facebook user data to get to the root of what sort of promoted content and messaging would resonate most with people. It's also unclear how to selectively remove that data, if at all -- which could be a valuable next step for Facebook, says HubSpot Product Lead Daria Marmer.

That became particularly salient when I discovered that my Facebook data includes a transcript of every Messenger interaction I've had, replete with any photo or video files I may have shared in those conversations. Again, this might not be new.

In an April earnings call , Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg noted that as part of the social network's ongoing efforts to personalize any content seen by a given user, it would take "a couple of different approaches towards more private content as well.

In the context of the full remarks, it would appear that Zuckerberg was referring to content promotion in these private conversations -- namely, those taking place on Messenger and WhatsApp also owned by Facebook. Those plans are increasingly coming to fruition as of late, by way of in-app ads on Messenger see below image and the proposed Messenger Broadcast feature.

At the time, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg positioned these efforts as going strictly toward displaying Facebook content that users would be "genuinely happy to see. But to this day, and among recent events, it remains unclear as to which data is, was, or would be used to help target the "private content" Zuckerberg alluded to.

However, some believe that any user data authorization, including the kind that eventually led to the alleged misuse by Cambridge Analytica , would include Messenger data and files, too.

This personal revelation comes among recent allegations that, on Android devices, Facebook may have been scraping data on calls made and text messages sent from users' mobile devices -- through the device itself, not the Messenger platform.

Here's what that logged activity looked like for one Android user who discovered this record in his own data file:. Source: Ars Technica. Facebook's response to this allegation is that users must explicitly opt into allowing Messenger to access contacts and, it seems, log call and text activity. According to a statement published Sunday:. But according to Ars Technica writer and editor Sean Gallagher, that's not the experience shared by all Android Users.

Even though he never installed Messenger on the Android devices he's used, Gallagher says that after installing Facebook on his Nexus tablet and Blackphone 2 in , his own archive includes call data from between and That's after, he says , never receiving "an explicit message requesting access to phone call and SMS data.

If nothing else, it seems that no one is quite sure how, exactly, personal Facebook user data is being leveraged, in whose possession it might be, and how much information those who have it might be privy to. After several days of silence on the initial Cambridge Analytica data misuse allegations, Zuckerberg finally issued a statement on the matter last Thursday, and has been on an active interview and apology circuit since then.

Case in point: Full-page mea culpa ads in the Sunday editions of the New York Times , Washington Post , and Observer which is published by Guardian, an outlet Facebook threatened to sue before it first reported on the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

But there have been a few key, repetitive themes underlying Zuckerberg's remarks. The first is an emphasis on the words "I'm sorry," which were notably absent from his official written statement released last week.