How to Download Your Facebook Chat History for Safekeeping

You could be chatting with a friend, and because of the importance of the conversation, want to save it. In some cases, you may only need to keep part of the chat and in others the whole thing. Whatever your needs are, you’ll be happy to know there are methods to either save parts of or the entire conversation.

You don’t have to be a tech genius to be able to do this. With the following methods, you’ll be able to download your Facebook chat history and quickly save all the conversations you want.

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Download Facebook Data to Save Your Conversations

If what you’re looking for is to download absolutely everything from your conversations, including photos, then this is the method for you. By downloading the Facebook data, you’ll download things such as friends lists, Facebook data, posts, messages, pictures, etc.

It’s easier to do this via desktop. Alternatively, use your mobile device’s browser and log in to Facebook via the Facebook website. Then, tap your browser’s menu icon and choose “Desktop view.” This allows you to view the desktop version of Facebook, including all the relevant options used below, on a mobile device.

Log in to your Facebook account and open the menu at the far top right. Select “Settings & Privacy.”

Choose “Settings.”

Choose “Your Facebook Information” in the left pane.

Select “View” beside “Download Your Information.”

This page gives you several options before you actually download anything. First, choose a date range, media quality, and file type. If you’re mainly interested in your Facebook chat history, HTML works well for the file type.

You can download everything you’ve added to your account since it was created or even just a single day. It’s completely up to you.

Originally, you could only download all your data. But now, Facebook allows you to choose what you download. Directly below the file creation options is a list of available data to download. Everything is selected by default. Uncheck anything you don’t want. If you only want your chat history, leave Messages checked.

When you’re ready, click the blue “Create File” button just above the list of available data.

The information isn’t immediately available. Instead, you’ll see the following message.

You’ll receive an email when your requested file is ready. This can take anywhere from a few minutes to several days for extremely large amounts of data. If you’re still using Facebook, you’ll also get a pop-up notification.

All requested copies of your data are stored in the “Download Your Information” page under “Available Copies.” If your file isn’t ready yet, you’ll see “Pending” beside it. If it is ready, you’ll see a “Download” button. Press this to download your file, including chat history.

You can delete any file copies by pressing “Delete” beside the file name. Please note you’ll need to generate a new copy in the future if you need the same files.

Unzip the file and open the contents to view your messages. Windows has an “extract all” option when you right-click the file. You can also use online tools. If you’re a Linux user, there are several methods for extracting files. Alternatively, use a third-party extraction tool for Windows, Mac, or Linux.

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Messages Saver

The simplest third-party way to download your Facebook chats is to use Messages Saver, an extension available for Chrome.

Messages Saver keeps things nice and simple. It’s a browser extension that only works when you’re on the Messenger page of Facebook. Once you’re in Messenger, click a chat, then open the Messages Saver extension.

You must select a chat, then choose a date range. Press “Download” to download the messages.

The free version of Messages Saver saves chats in the HTML format, but in the $4 paid version, you can grab your chats in different formats, with images, and so on.

While simple enough, it doesn’t always work quite as promised. For instance, I had trouble getting it to work on desktop, but it worked fine on mobile. Also, sometimes you just get a “refresh page” error and can’t download anything. It’s worth trying if you just want to download a single set of messages, but it’s not perfect.

Also read:How to Bulk-Delete Messages from Facebook Messenger

Conclusion

If you ever need to keep your important conversations, now you know how. The easiest and most reliable method is simply using Facebook’s “Download Your Information” tool. After Facebook made changes to the platform, many third-party tools no longer work, but the first method to download your Facebook chat history easily.

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