Ever Wonder How Much Facebook Knows About You? Here’s How to See

Author: Harry Guinness / Source: howtogeek.com

Facebook has a lot of information about—every post shared, photo uploaded, message sent, item clicked on, and pretty much every other data point you can imagine. And it’s all in the name of serving you better ads and keeping you on Facebook.

The thing is, this is still your information.

You can’t get access to the weird metrics that Facebook tracks behind the scenes, but you can easily download everything else: messages, posts, photos, and more. So, let’s dig deep and have a look at how to see all the info Facebook keeps stored on you.

Downloading Your Information

Facebook has a tool to help you download all your data in one go. It’s useful if you want to leave the service, or just back up all your data separately. Go to the Facebook website, click the downward facing arrow in the top right corner of the screen, and then select the “Settings” option. You can also just go directly to Facebook.com/Settings.

Click the “Download a Copy of Your Facebook Data” link at the bottom of the General Account Settings page.

Next, click the “Start My Archive” button.

Type your password when asked, and you’ll be told that it will take Facebook a few minutes to gather your data. It took about two hours for mine, although my archive ended up being 1.58 GB. Facebook will email you when your archive is ready for downloading, so go and do something else for a while.

When the email arrives, click the link, and then click the “Download” button on the page that opens. You’ll need to type your password again to start your download.

Depending on the size of your archive and the speed of your internet connection, this could also take a while.

Exploring Your Data

Your Facebook archive downloads as a .ZIP file, so extract it using the tool of your choice. All the data is buried in the different subfolders. You can explore those folders directly, but there’s a simpler way to do things. Double click the index.htm file in the top level of your Facebook archive folder.