Yesterday I downloaded all of my data from Facebook. It’s a relatively new feature and it’s very easy to do. Head over to General Account Settings, then click on ‘Download a copy of your Facebook data’. You will have to re-enter your password at that point, just in case you’re not the owner of the profile. Facebook will then collect some of your data, zip it up and email you when the download is ready.

My 576 megabytes of data took about half an hour or so to collect. When I got the email, I dutifully went back to my account and downloaded the data that Facebook had collected. I was, needless to say, disappointed when I discovered that the data was far from complete.

As far as I can see, all of my photo albums are there, even the ones I have deleted in the past. My notes are all there, too. What’s missing? Well, my wall is missing two years of status updates. My messages are very incomplete. The string of messages that I wanted most is totally missing. I tried to archive that set of messages to see what the effect of that would be, thinking that maybe I could download them after archiving. No luck.  The only thing I can do is to forward the messages one by one to my email address. Frustrating, to say the least.

It seems that Facebook has tried to allay some people’s fears about privacy. From the looks of the data collection system that they use, Facebook hasn’t really made me feel any better at all. Sure, I’ve got my photos, videos and notes but what happened to hundreds and hundreds of my messages? Where did the missing two years of my status updates go? Lost in a server change?

TIP: Depending on where you live, this feature may not be available to you. I’m in Canada and our government has taken Facebook to court a couple of times on issues of privacy. I know that this data download is available in Europe also but I can’t guarantee that this post applies to everyone who might read it.

I will wait another month or two before I try again. Maybe the next data download will be more complete. I am not the only one that this problem has affected. Other users have discovered the same thing as I have. What was your experience? Did you manage to get all of your data?

Thanks for reading. I’d love to read your comments.