How often have you heard people say: “I’d delete my Facebook account if all my photos weren’t there.”? Well now the company expanding a feature that eradicates that dilemma.
Today Facebook is extending the availability of a feature that enables Facebook users to seamlessly transfer more than a decades worth of photographic memories to Google Photos… and then drop the social network like a bad habit.
The simple tool will batch transfer the files and certainly beats the current method, which involves manually sorting hundreds of photos, downloading them one by one, and then re-uploading to the platform of your choosing.
The tool, which has been in operation in Ireland since late last year, is today expanding to the United States and Canada (via Engadget). Hopefully it won’t be too long until Britain gains access too. We’ll keep you posted.
Related: How to delete your Facebook account
It’s all part of an agreement between Facebook, Microsoft, Google and Twitter to enable users to move their data between services so the public isn’t beholden to any of them. The Data Transfer Project is rolling out slowly though and the only service available to Facebook users right now is Google Photos. That’s likely to expand to Microsoft’s OneDrive platform in the future.
So how do you use it? Well it’s actually pretty straightforward. Simply follow this link to the Data Transfer Project and choose Google Photos from the drop-down menu. Select whether you want to transfer videos, photos, or both. Then and you’ll be asked to sign in to your Google account.
Before confirming, Google says “make sure you trust Facebook” and to check their terms and service and privacy policies before agreeing. Once the process is complete the files will appear within the Google Photos library and, you can finally pull the trigger on that Facebook account deletion.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
