Move Facebook photos and videos to your own bucket

Facebook is a feed. It is a worse vault. Photos, videos, and album files you care about should live in a bucket you own if you want them to outlast an app change.

This post is the move for Facebook media. Not Instagram. Not Google Photos. Not Drive. Those belong in Move Instagram to your own bucket, Move Google Photos to your own bucket, and Move Google Drive to your own bucket.

1. Request the download from Facebook

Log in on Facebook. Open Settings, then Your information, then Download your information. Or open Accounts Center, then Download your information.

Create a download that includes photos and videos, or posts. JSON is the better format when Facebook offers it. Start the request and wait until Meta says it is ready. That can take hours or days. When it is ready, you usually get an email, and the zip also shows under Available downloads for a few days.

Download the zip to this computer. You don't need to unpack it. The zip is the handoff. The bucket is the home.

Facebook's help page on downloading your information has the full steps.

2. Pick a bucket you own

You need S3-compatible object storage.

For the price table, see the cheapest cloud object storage comparison.

This post does not walk the console again. If you do not have a bucket hooked up yet, follow how to connect a Backblaze B2 bucket and come back.

3. Import the zip in file.rocks

Sign in at file.rocks. Open Settings, then Import. Stay on From zip.

Pick Facebook. That profile is for Facebook data download media folders. The default destination hint is Facebook.

Leave Media files only on unless you need non-media files from the zip. HTML pages, CSS, JS, and most JSON sidecars are skipped either way, so the import stays focused on your photos and videos.

Select the zip. Optionally set a destination folder. Click Start import. Keep the tab open while it runs. If it pauses, you can resume by selecting the same zip again.

Media lands under Facebook/…, including folders like posts/media, photos/, videos/, and album paths from the export.

This is not how to unzip a file in your own bucket. That is Extract to bucket on a zip you already own in Files. This is not import a file from a link or torrent either. If the zip is already unpacked, how to upload a folder to your own bucket is the fallback.

4. What you lose

Know this before you delete anything on Facebook.

You lose the feed as a product. The bucket holds files. It is not a Facebook app.

You lose likes, comments, and reactions as they appear on Facebook. Those stay with Facebook. The import skips the HTML pages and most JSON sidecars that wrap that activity.

You lose Messenger as a chat product. Some message media can land as files. The conversation UI does not.

You lose live shares and discovery. People who followed you on Facebook will not see a magic link into your new bucket.

You keep the media you exported. You own the bucket. You can leave file.rocks, or your storage provider, and the objects still sit there.

5. Then stop

Do not rebuild Facebook. Do not hunt for a feed viewer on day one.

Open the files in file.rocks when you need a photo.

Need to send a file after it lands? That is how to share a file from your own bucket.

Instagram, Photos, Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, and iCloud are different exports. Use those migrate posts when that is the library you are moving. Start with Move Instagram to your own bucket if that is next.

Your files stay in the bucket you connected, and file.rocks is how you manage them.