How to Export Your Facebook Messages

Searching for your favorite conversation in a multitude of Facebook messages can be a nightmare. That said, if you want to safeguard important Facebook chats or save your favorite conversations for a trip down memory lane, you’ve come to the right spot. Read below to find out several promising ways to export your Facebook messages.

How to Export Your Facebook Messages

Exporting Facebook messages is a good idea to keep them safe from prying eyes. Fortunately, the platform offers several ways to download your conversations so you can browse and revisit your favorites anytime. Additionally, you can pick a specific time interval to export selective conversations of interest.

1. Take a Screenshot

Facebook doesn’t offer a standalone feature to export a single chat from all your conversations. However, you can always take a scrolling screenshot on your PC or phone to save the entire conversation.

1. Open the Facebook Messenger app on your Android phone, followed by your desired conversation.
   
2. Take a long/scrolling screenshot on your phone to capture the important parts of the conversation.
3. You can save the screenshot on your device and export it to Google Drive or Dropbox to access it anytime and from any device.
   

On iPhones, access your Facebook account in Safari and take a screenshot of the chat. Tap the screenshot preview before it disappears, and select Full-Page to capture and save the entire conversation. Facebook might push you to use its Messenger app and block you from accessing your messages through Safari. In such cases, log into Messenger from your PC and take screenshots of the relevant chats. 

Tip: If your device doesn’t have the long/scrolling screenshot feature, you can install free third-party apps from the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store for similar results.

2. Export Your Entire Facebook Messenger Chat History

Taking screenshots is convenient for a single conversation but might become challenging when you wish to save multiple Facebook chats. Fortunately, you can utilize Facebook’s export feature to download all conversations directly to your device or Google Drive. You can also pick specific time intervals and specify the data format (HTML or JSON) before requesting an export.

Do note that Facebook mandatorily requires a password to download the account data.

1. Open Facebook on your PC and click your profile icon.
2. Tap Settings and Privacy.
   
3. Next, click Settings.
   
4. Scroll down the left sidebar and click Download Your Information. Press Continue from the page that opens.
   
5. Place a new export request by clicking Request a Download.
6. Pick your Facebook account and click Next. You can also select multiple accounts or pages (even your Instagram account) to export its data.
   
7. Pick Complete Copy. You can also choose Select types of Information to only export messages.
   
8. Click on Date Range. Specify your desired time period for export. You can also set it to All time to download all data, but processing might take a little longer.
9. Finally, select your desired format (HTML or JSON) and click Submit Request. We recommend choosing the HTML format for easy viewing, as you will need an additional app to open the JSON file.
   
10. If you’re exporting your Facebook conversations from your phone, you will see an additional Transfer to Google Drive option. Linking Google Drive will export your Facebook account’s archived data to Google Drive instead of hosting it on Facebook servers for download.
    

Depending on the data, you should receive an email from Facebook containing a download link to your account data. Open the download link and confirm your identity by logging in with your Facebook account to start the download. Note that you can’t place another export request until the first one is completed. Once a request is processed, you have four days to download the data.

Here’s how to access your Messenger conversation with the exported data downloaded.

1. Extract the downloaded ZIP file on your device. 
2. Open the your_activity_across_facebook folder.
   
3. Locate and open the messages folder.
4. Click the your_messages.html file to view all chats from your Facebook account.
   
5. The HTML file contains clickable message titles for easy navigation. Click a message link to open it.
   
6. You can now view the entire conversation on your device, including media attachments (if any).
   

Wrapping Up

It might seem difficult to download and keep Facebook messages safe at first, but the platform’s export features make it quite simple. Alternatively, you can always screenshot a message to review or revisit later.

In case you’ve accidentally removed a message, you can learn to recover the deleted Facebook message before exporting your account data.

FAQs

Can I export a Facebook message conversation?

You can do it by accessing your account settings or simply taking a screenshot of the conversation you wish to save. Check the steps listed above for more details.

How do I download Facebook chats to PDF?

Once you’ve obtained an HTML copy of your exported Facebook conversations, you can use the browser’s print feature (Ctrl+P) to save it in PDF format.

How long does it take to download Facebook data?

It all depends on the magnitude of data in your Facebook account. It can take anywhere from minutes to days to get the email with the exported Facebook data.