Claims that Facebook will be deleting all your photos and you need to back them up are spreading across the social networking website. The claims are rooted in truth, but many of them have become exaggerated or confused leaving many social media users unsure of what is going on.
So here is the full explanation.
First of all it is important to note that Facebook are NOT deleting all of your photos. You don’t need to download and backup all the photos in your various albums you’ve created over the years (with that said, they should really be backed up anyway for good measure.)
So this means any photos you’ve directly uploaded to Facebook from your computer and any personal albums you’ve created are not going to be deleted.
With that said, many users will have a photo album named “Synced from Phone” and photos in this album will be deleted unless you install a separate Facebook app called “Moments”.
So, what is this “Synced from Phone” album and how do you know if you have one?
Basically, for those smartphone users out there who use the main Facebook app on their phone, that app did have an optional feature that would – if enabled – allow all the photos you took on your phone to automatically sync (copy) to a private photo album on your Facebook account. Facebook don’t use that feature any more, but for those users who used the feature, any photos taken from their smartphone between 2012 (when the feature was introduced) and 2015 (when the feature was stopped) will be in that photo album.
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To see if you have this photo album, simply go to your profile, click photos and look for an album called “Synced from Phone”. If you don’t use the Facebook app on your phone or have never enabled the syncing feature, then you probably don’t have an album by this name and none of this probably matters to you.
If you do have an album by this name, these photos will be deleted.
That is, unless you install and login to Facebook’s new “Moments” app by July 7th, which will move all those photos to that new app where they will be safe from deletion.
If you don’t fancy using the new “Moments” app (and we can understand why installing yet another Facebook app may not be top on your priority list) then if the photos on that album are not already on your computer, you need to download the photos to your computer soon.
Downloading the album is easy. Just go to the album, click on the cog icon on the top right hand corner (of Facebook desktop) and select Download Album.
To clarify and summarise, it is only the photos that the main Facebook app automatically synced to your Facebook account that are in the “Synced from Phone” photo album that will be deleted if you don’t install the “Moments” app.