I will give Facebook credit up front that it’s good they even offer a way to download your data locally as a backup. This is something no other social media site has ever done, so it’s better than nothing. Whether it’s actually manageable or not is a different story, and I’ll explain that more in a moment.

The way to get a download of your Facebook profile stuff started is to login to Facebook and then click Account at top right, then Account Settings.

After that, look for the header Download Your Information and click the learn more next to it.

On the next screen is a green Download button.

When you click that, you get this:

Mash the Download button, and it changes to this:

You go about your business until the email arrives. Depending on how much Facebook content you have posted, it will either arrive in a few minutes or a few hours.

At some point you’ll receive a plain email like this:

This email will contain a download link. Click that link and you’ll be taken to this web page:

…where you will have to enter your Facebook password and click the blue Continue button.

At this point you have to go through a "Security Check".

Important note: I am under the assumption the check style varies. I was presented with identifying people in photos.

I personally had to identify 5 different people before I was finally brought here:

Mash the green Download Now button.

What do you get for all this effort?

One ZIP file, which for novice users would be almost impossible to figure out what to do with it.

The ZIP contains the following:

"index" is your Facebook profile page. "README" states the time/date you downloaded the archive and nothing else. "photos" are any photos you uploaded.

"html", which I am absolutely positive would confuse the crap out of any novice, contains the web pages for picture albums, friend list, messages list, photos list, your photos, your profile and your wall..

..but presented like this:

I understand all of the above, know what they all are and how to work with them.

But I seriously doubt most people who use Facebook would have any clue what these even are, much less how to even use them.

Again I will say it’s very nice Facebook even offers this because other social media sites don’t even offer it – but you do specifically have to know how to work with plain HTML documents.

For most of you, it should be true that all you have to do is open the ZIP, copy the folder to the desktop and then simply double-click the HTML document of choice to view which will launch in your default browser.

If you’re not even able to get that far, well, let’s just say that wouldn’t surprise me because the way this works is not user-friendly at all.

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