Quitting Facebook is about to become less daunting… thanks to a new tool on Facebook

Deleting your Facebook account is about to become a bit less daunting. Facebook is inadvertently removing one of the barriers that puts some people off cutting ties with the site − the thought of losing their photos.

The social network has just launched a new tool, which was born out of the Data Transfer Project (a collaboration involving Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft and Twitter), which lets people quickly transfer their Facebook pictures to Google Photos.

Related: How to delete a Facebook account

It’s currently only available to users based in Ireland, but Facebook says it “will be available worldwide in early 2020”.

Though many people recognise that Facebook is one of the world’s super-villains, lots of people I know have struggled to go through with deleting their Facebook account.

Why? Because Facebook is the platform through which it’s easiest to organise an event, not wanting to lose their photos, and Facebook Messenger.

Sadly, there’s no easy workaround for the first factor, but if it’s either of the other two reasons that are holding you back, there’s no need.

You can use Facebook Messenger without having a Facebook account.

Related: How to use Facebook Messenger without a Facebook account

And with the launch of this new tool, you’ll easily be able to transfer your Facebook photos… to a service that’s operated by another internet super-villain. Okay, there’s clearly another issue here.

You can, however, go one better by downloading your Facebook data, to be stored offline. To do this, follow these steps:

• Open the Settings menu (by clicking the downwards pointing arrow in the top right corner of any Facebook page in your web browser)
• Select ‘Your Facebook Information’ from the side bar on the left side of the page
• Click ‘Download you information’
• Choose the information you want to download (we’d recommend all of it) and hit ‘Create File’