How to download your personal chat data from Messenger?

Own your chat data on Messenger

Wang Jiannan

Introduction

Messenger is a popular instant messaging app with 1.3 billion monthly active users worldwide. This article provides step-by-step instructions on how to download your personal chat data from Messenger.

Note that Messenger only lets you download a copy of your data in machine readable formats(HTML/JSON), so you would need another software to look back on these memories in a meaningful way. Good news is that

Remembered⁠

provides an easy way to preserve digital memories across major social media platforms in one place. You also get to own 100% of your personal data on your local drive if you are not comfortable with big tech companies owning your most precious memory.

Downloading a copy of your data is a native functionality Messenger offers across platforms(iPhone, Android, and PC). You can follow along this

help doc from Messenger⁠

or continue reading for a more visual guide.

Instructions

Step 1:

Log into your Facebook account and go to the following link:

https://www.facebook.com/dyi/ ⁠

on your PC.

Step 2:

Select the following options:

Format: “JSON”

Media quality: “High”

Date range: select the date range you’d like to export for historical chats

⁠

Step 3:

Click ‘Deselect All” and ONLY select “Messages” in the activity list. In this case, ONLY your messages from Messenger will be downloaded.

⁠

Step 4:

Scroll to the end of the page and then click “Request a download”.

⁠

Step 5:

You'll soon receive an email titled “Your Facebook information file is ready” with a link to your data. Click “Available Files” and follow the instructions to finish downloading your information.

This email typically arrives within a couple hours or several days. It should come from notification@facebookmail.com. Please also check your spam folder if you can’t locate the email.

⁠

If you follow along, you should have a copy of personal chat data with families and friends from Messenger to look back on years later. If you are looking for a tool that helps you reminisce these memories easily in a beautiful view, please give

Remembered⁠

a try.

Introduction

Instructions

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