
How to delete Facebook and not lose your friends and photos - ronaldl93
https://ronaldlangeveld.com/deleting-facebook/
======
TaylorAlexander
I just wanted to say that I walked away from Facebook about a year and a half
ago now. I didn’t delete it, I just logged out and uninstalled the mobile app.
It’s all been totally fine. The most social social media I use now is reddit,
where I’m more just talking to people. I don’t post status updates anywhere,
and often amazing things happen to me that I never tell anyone about. I eat
great meals and don’t share. I became vegetarian and am going vegan and almost
all of the people I would have told before have no idea, but it doesn’t matter
at all. I’m just living my life, and when cool things happen I share them with
the people I’m around.

With the continued leaks and breaches on Facebook, I’d like to do what the
author does here. I do want to download the information, but then I’d like to
delete my account.

I still wish there was some kind of social media platform like Facebook from
2008, but it’s not that big of a deal. I’m glad I don’t get stressed by some
app on my phone all the time. People who want to talk to me email or text now.

I think social media could work. But until then, consider letting go of the
existing platforms are stressing you out. We do just fine without sharing our
day with the internet, as long as we have good people in our lives.

~~~
telesilla
>when cool things happen I share them with the people I’m around

I really expect the next generation (I guess, kids born in the last 8 years)
to launch a major backlash against over-sharing and pretty go back to the
roots of relationships: exactly how you said it.

~~~
bogomipz
That that would also be a generation who had their baby and childhood pictures
unwittingly shared and now owned by social media companies. This is something
I find really strange and unsettling.

~~~
PascLeRasc
I really admire what a family friend did after she had a baby. She isn't
posting any photos of him on social media, and says it's because he can't
consent to have his photos shared publicly. Lots of her friends keep pestering
her saying "I want to see the baby!" and she says they're welcome to come
over, and suddenly they don't want to see him _that_ much. They just want
something they can click like on.

~~~
giobox
This logic is bizarre to me. He can’t consent to being fed, clothed or having
his diaper changed either. I imagine she likely still does all three.

For a parent, making choices on your child’s behalf is kinda part of the deal.

~~~
bogomipz
>"For a parent, making choices on your child’s behalf is kinda part of the
deal"

And this person has made the decision for their child that whatever social
media company is not going to own their child's image. What is is "bizarre"
about that.

I hardly think caring for a child and letting a corporation own their image
are even remotely the same thing.

~~~
giobox
I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said, it’s perfectly fair, but what
you’ve said is not the logic she is using.

If she had said this I see no logical discrepancy, but to couch your logic in
terms of a child’s lack of consent is the point that makes little sense.

------
amirathi
I successfully tricked my mind to not use Facebook by destroying / making my
feed non-personal.

How?

I became member of all sorts of group: Buy-N-Sell in my local area, technology
groups, 10+ DevOps groups and so on. The quality of posts on these is poor and
is irrelevant for me for the most part. So every time I used to open the app
out of habit, I would see all non-personal crappy posts and I would close the
app in under 10 seconds. Over time my mind hated using FB and clicking on that
app went away from my muscle memory without me trying to force any habit
changes.

Why not just delete the account? FB is still great to find old friends, ex-
colleagues who I might have lost contact with. I also use it as my public mic
to post stuff that I want to share as widely as I can.

It's fun to take on the PMs who design addictive products that influence us at
psychological level and beat them at their own game. Bring it on!

~~~
ElCapitanMarkla
I found just deleting the app on my phone was a great way to cut the habit of
opening it every time I looked at my phone. I thought I was about ready to
delete it after a few days but then suddenly realised that without it I would
lose touch with a heap of businesses around town, food trucks, nice takeaways
etc, that I wouldn't otherwise know about. Deleting the app has easily cut 90%
of the time I was spending on facebook, but my hungry belly still has there :D

~~~
greglindahl
I made myself only use FB via mbasic.facebook.com, it's an awkward enough
interface that it helps me minimize using it.

~~~
8note
they broke my main use of Facebook for it, which also helps a lot

------
scarejunba
I just have a single strike policy for most of my friends. I unfollow anyone
as soon as they post something I don't want to see. I don't tell them,
obviously. It works quite well.

Scrolled down just now and saw one post of someone running a 10k, a complaint
about not having a holiday on Monday (haha), an ad from Triplebyte, a photo of
the SpaceX rocket launch visible from the city, pictures from Yosemite, a
birthday, an ad for Fairy, and a friend cosplaying.

Not so bad. I'm fine with that.

~~~
quest88
FB has become way more enjoyable for me after adopting a similar strategy. Now
it's down to my close friends, family, and old HS friends who are up to cool
things I'm interested in.

The hardest part for me was unfollowing close friends who post a lot of
garbage and videos. Before I complained about FB being shit content, but it
was really some friends posting shit content.

I think in combination unfriending and unfollowing lots of people, and
facebook's algorithm updates, it has become more useful and fun to use again.

------
justin_oaks
"Anything from Upworthy"

Good for a laugh, but it's pretty easy to get rid of that stuff in particular.
Anytime anyone reshares something, I go to the 3-dot menu and select "Hide all
from xxxxx".

It makes most of the crap go away... except for the one "friend" who somehow
manages to reshare everything under the sun. Somehow that guy keeps finding
new sources for me to "Hide all" from. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

It is by no means a solution, but the signal-to-noise ratio is increased.

~~~
endymi0n
That reminds me of the old joke that Facebook helps you deal with the problems
you wouldn‘t have without it...

~~~
Double_a_92
Just like beer.

------
bfred_it
Accepting 1500 friends and then complaining they’re too many. Who’s to blame
here?

Facebook is what you make of it. It offers relatively granular control over
who you want to see so if even you must be friends with someone, you can still
unfollow them.

Surely the default is a bit annoying, especially when joining groups, but
those can be unfollowed too.

The only thing I can complain about is “your friend reacted to or commented on
some post” I don’t care about. That’s Facebook’s fault but your friends are
your fault. Most of the time I add friends and promptly unfollow them because
they share memes.

~~~
twblalock
> Facebook is what you make of it. It offers relatively granular control over
> who you want to see so if even you must be friends with someone, you can
> still unfollow them.

Recent events have demonstrated that the privacy controls are not what people
think they are. Cambridge Analytica was able to access data belonging to the
friends of people who granted certain permissions, and there was a recent data
breach caused by a bug in an impersonation feature. Advertisers are able to
see quite a lot of information too.

~~~
sdrothrock
I don't think this is related to what bfred_it is saying.

To me, he's saying "if you have 1500 friends, use Facebook's follow/unfollow
feature to improve your S/N ratio while still being friends with those
people." That is, rather than privacy (controlling outgoing information), he's
discussing the ability to filter incoming information.

~~~
bfred_it
That’s correct. I’m not talking about what happens to your data but about what
you see on your feed.

------
heinrichhartman
I wrote about this a while ago:
[http://heinrichhartmann.com/blog/2017/12/31/Quitting-
Faceboo...](http://heinrichhartmann.com/blog/2017/12/31/Quitting-
Facebook.html)

""" Problem with the facebook exporter are:

\- All comments are missing. Even the ones you wrote yourself!

\- There are no images in the timeline.

\- The number of likes and shares is missing on the posts.

Before I delete my account, I wanted to have a more decent backup of my
timeline. I looked into printing out the timeline, exporting it as pdf, full-
page screenshots, massaging the DOM/HTML. I could get none of this working,
with acceptable effort.

Eventually I went throught the whole timeline (100s of posts!) and
screenshotted each one individually. To make this process a little less
tedious I changed the OSX keyboard shortcut for full page scrrenshot to F1, so
I could use the following combo:

[...] """

~~~
motdiem
Screenshotting is one method that is surprisingly popular in the wild - It
makes me a bit sad that so much state/metadata is lost when screenshotting,
but it may prove the most efficient method going forward. I wonder if it'll be
easier with DOM screenshot tools now available in major browers, so you can
easily screenshot "just a post"

------
tmalsburg2
If you lose contact with someone after deleting Facebook, they were not your
friend in the first place. My conclusion after deleting my account four years
ago. Getting rid of Facebook was one of the best decisions of my life.

~~~
jedimastert
I don't think I agree with that idea. People have different ways of
communicating, not to mention I don't think people who do use Facebook as a
main communication method should be punished because you think you're above
it.

~~~
throwaway9763
People choosing to use a walled garden are being punished by those who would
rather not? You may have that reversed - this isn't about thinking you're
"above" a communication method, but it is worth noting that Facebook
_requires_ using their specific service while many other methods (phone,
email, etc.) can be used from a variety of providers.

So, saying "I only use Facebook to communicate" and expecting others to
conform is a bit more naturally presumptuous than choosing to leave Facebook -
and it's a fair point that if a relationship can't survive _not_ using a
specific proprietary tool, then maybe it wasn't that strong of a relationship.

------
mothsonasloth
I quit Facebook for about 2 years back in 2015. It was a good time to self
reflect and focus on myself. However I realised I was missing out on
birthday/wedding/social invites.

I reactivated it and have a policy of only checking it 2-3 times a week. I
dont have either apps on my phone.

My profile is tidied up and has contact information that my friends can use to
reach out to me (hardly anyone has).

Reddit is the next thing I am contemplating my usage. It sucks up way too much
time for the reward of fake internet points.

~~~
8fingerlouie
The "problem" with Reddit is that (depending on your selections) most
information there is actually relevant.

After Google killed Reader, i found myself using Reddit and HN far more than i
had previously, as these are good aggregators of stuff i find interesting.

~~~
pixelbath
Reddit has the problem of highly relevant information with terrible search.
Google is the preferred way to search for content on Reddit, but there's no
advanced filtering by time, popularity, or any of the other metrics that
Reddit useful.

------
Jaruzel
This thread seems a good place to re-pimp my Facebook profile cleaner (for
those that missed it first time):

[http://www.jaruzel.com/blog/how-i-erased-5000-facebook-
comme...](http://www.jaruzel.com/blog/how-i-erased-5000-facebook-comments-and-
likes)

~~~
motdiem
Going through the mbasic interface of facebook for this is brilliant. Good job
!

~~~
Jaruzel
Cheers!

------
tokyodude
Maybe I'm just not very social, I have 834 "friends" on facebook but I don't
feel any need to delete it nor do I feel any fear of being left out or stuff
like that nor do I spend too much time on or any of the myriad of other things
so many HNers report with their experience on FB.

I don't really want to delete it as it's how I stay in touch with friends and
family. It's how most of my friends organize events. Messenger (not the FB
app) is the #1 way friends communicate with me and each other as well.

I did do a few things though. I aggressively unfollowed people. Anyone I only
met a few times. Friends I haven't seen in years or don't expect to see.
Anyone who posts too much (except my sister who I feel I can't unfollow).
Friends who post too much political stuff. I click "this ad offends me on
every ad". I use FB Purity on the desktop web site with about 10 filters to
filter out a bunch of crap like "was mentioned in a post" or "replied to a
comment", "shared her post", "shared his post", "is with" and other attention
spam.

Not that much shows up but I'm still able to keep up with a few really close
friends and family and still participate in event organizing etc and not feel
I'm being spammed too much. I don;'t have FB Purity on my phone but I guess I
don't use the app all that much on the phone. I mostly use Messenger for
messages and the FB app to look at profiles (linked from Messenger) and to
read/post in shared event pages.

Of course maybe you want to delete FB because of leaks or you just don't want
to be tracked which are really good reasons to get off. All I'm trying to say
is I don't recognize many of the other complaints in my own experiences with
FB so maybe others might find those solutions useful?

------
cntlzw
FB is really great about making you feel guilty if you delete the app, don't
use the app. You miss your friends, they miss you, you don't get all the news,
you feel out of the loop, you are lonely again.

Deactivated (not deleted) my account a couple weeks ago. Guess what? Life goes
on. Nothing happened. I am still in the loop and I spare a couple minutes per
day. Gained a bit more freedom, at least it does feel like it.

~~~
dorchadas
I got kinda lucky and can now avoid all this. When I first signed up, I used
an email address I had in 2007. I now no longer have that one, so can't check
it there. The only other email address I ever used with it was my university
one, which I needed to join their network. Never added any of the other ones I
have, and that one is now deleted. So I never see their endless emails or
anything of the such; it's great.

------
philliphaydon
I’d love to make a dumb social network which could import
friends/photos/videos from a Facebook export.

Which just shows photos videos and comments/posts.

Ditched the shares, likes, and all the other crap. And was just a place where
we can keep in touch with people. And leave it at that.

~~~
ravenstine
A lot of people like this idea, but it seems that no one really wants to
implement it.

~~~
philliphaydon
I would love to build it. Open source. But I suck at design so I donno.

------
vyuh
When I downloaded my Facebook data few years ago, my notes were missing. I had
to reactivate my account, save them as HTML pages, and queue account for
deletion again. One should not think of profiles on these sites as reliable
archive of ones data. There is no alternative to local backup for this. With
deletion one loses so many little memorable things, for example comments.

~~~
motdiem
can I ask how did you save your notes ? Just view source and save the html as
files ?

------
virmundi
Why do people care about the photos? There's a Lewis Black joke where he
opines on this exact same thing: "I didn't even like looking at my family
photo album". Why not close the account and never look back without regard to
the photos?

There seems to be a belief that holding someone in your list of contacts is
equivalent to being their friend. You're not. You're an entry in a really
small Rolodex. If you haven't actually personally spoken with them in a few
months, you are dusty card in that Rolodex. Burn the pile and let those
relationships that matter emerge from the ash.

------
danburzo
I quit Facebook before GDPR came into effect, so it's heartening to see FB now
has better export tools. At the beginning of the year I had to write my own:
[https://github.com/danburzo/fb-export](https://github.com/danburzo/fb-export)

~~~
ilikehurdles
Facebook had this a year ago as well. I quit and exported my data at the
beginning of 2017. I actually only just looked at the export after reading
this hn post. Up until now I just kept it zipped as a backup "just in case".
Looking back at all the things I used to share and participate in on social
media just reconfirms my decision to ditch it.

~~~
danburzo
I may be wrong, but I think up to GDPR compliance, you'd only get a meager
HTML file that was not machine-readable, and some (but not all) of the images?

------
v1k65m677
I un-fallowed everyone, including pages/groups. No feed, no ads. When I open
fb, i see blank screen after few seconds of load. Now I'm now too lazy to
fallow them again.

------
gfo
I've only deactivated Facebook, not deleted. I'm worried that if I completely
delete I have no way left to access the data Facebook has on me. Is anyone
aware of how their shadow profiles work? If I deactivate, are they still able
to attribute things like someone uploading my number from their contacts back
to my profile?

It's this reason that I haven't nuked it entirely yet. I also use Messenger on
occasion to communicate with those I haven't spoken to in a long time. I'm
ready to make that leap soon. And no, not all of those folks whose numbers or
email addresses I lack are not 'friends' necessarily - I have a few former
colleagues and bosses on there as well I like to chat with on occasion.

------
dmschulman
Chiming in to say I'm similarly semi-disconnected from Facebook at this point.
My account is still active and I still post occasional updates from a third-
party platform (mostly articles I've read), but I rarely browse the site
anymore.

The only thing I find useful on Facebook that I can't find reliably anywhere
else is a comprehensive listing of local events and concerts (as well as
invites to things my friends host). If there were a separate site that could
aggregate and organize events content as nicely and completely as FB does I
would have deleted my account outright a while ago.

------
8fingerlouie
Sadly deleting Facebook isn't an option for me, as it has become _the_ place
to get notified about social events around here. Twitter/Reddit/whatever
doesn't have as strong a presence here, and the traditional websites have all
be replaced by facebook pages.

I've cut out all the services from my life that siphons my "metadata", and
while my daily Facebook usage was around 15 minutes/day, i still can't
completely delete it. Instead i've banned the Facebook app from my
phone/tablet and only check facebook when i'm at home during the evenings, and
even then i use Firefox with Facebook Container.

As for (Facebook) messenger, i'm trying hard to teach people that i don't use
it, or telegram, and instead they can reach me on Signal, or just plain old
iMessages/SMS. It takes a few weeks, but usually people "get it" when i don't
reply to their messages.

~~~
dmos62
Is deleting your account and creating an anonymous one to just check local
events a viable option?

~~~
notyourloops
Not really. Facebook will put your account in a cycle of verification hell.
They really don't seem to like accounts of users trying to be anonymous.
Granted, maybe someone else will have better luck with that than I did. For
me, they essentially disabled my account and re-enabled it on a weekly basis.
I got too annoyed and stopped using it as a result.

------
kinleyd
I left my Facebook account idle for about 6 years now, and didn't miss it at
all.

Now I'm trying to delete it and I can't find the link to "Your Facebook
Information" no matter where I look. This is where the delete option is
according to Facebook's help section.

Anyone having the same problem or is Facebook deliberately burying that link?

------
motdiem
Very timely post. Full disclosure : my current project [1] deals with
archiving content from social network, and we're considering adding more
things to import from facebook. The friends list example from the article is a
good one :

    
    
      As for my friend list.. well.. It's all in Json format..
      So now you can essentially use the power of your brain to think how your friend looked.
      If you can't, well then you probably weren't friends anyway. Sorry.
    

I'd be interested in your experiences either in leaving facebook, or about
things you'd which you could have saved

[1]([https://www.getkumbu.com/](https://www.getkumbu.com/))

------
thisismyusernam
This doesn't actually answer the issue posed in the title, "How not to lose
your friends". I was expecting at least a little discussion on how to replace
Facebook friends, how to stay connected, alternatives etc.

~~~
virmundi
Text message. Just text them. You can send funny pictures. You can have group
chats. You get all of this as part of your unlimited texting plan that's
probably laying fallow.

------
zer0faith
Walking away from social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram was
one best things I could do to reduce the negativity in my life.

------
erazor42
I want to delete my account but a lot of my friends use fb messenger (groups
ect.). Is there a way to delete profile and keep only messenger ?

~~~
chambo622
If I could keep Messenger + Events and get rid of the rest, I'd do so
immediately.

~~~
gammateam
You can use Messenger with just a phone number, like whatsapp

There is/was a Facebook Group app, where its just the groups

~~~
chambo622
The former, yes. But afaik the Facebook Groups or Local (Events) apps require
a full account.

------
locusofself
I've been using the chrome plugin "Kill News Feed" for several years and took
the app off my phone. I feel like a have a healthy relationship with FB now.
If someone wants to send me a message, I'm still there. If I need/want to look
someone up or tag my family/friends in a photos I can. But the feed is gone,
and I won't get sucked in.

------
jayalpha
Facebook fixer [https://socialfixer.com/](https://socialfixer.com/)

------
fogetti
Good for him. Although I don't really understand his stance: did he want to be
on a social platform because it was `cool`? It might be only me, but I never
wanted to be there because it's cool. I joined it because I wanted to keep
contact with some of my friends be it cool or not.

~~~
ronaldl93
I first joined it in 2007, meaning I was 13 or 14 years old :). Being South
African, the adoption rate for internet here was quite slow compared to first
world countries. So back then it literally was like the cool thing to be on,
just like being the kid on the block with latest and greatest Playstation or
motorbike.

From a socio economic point of view. It's actually terribly when I think of it
today. But that's just how it were growing up.

------
jayalpha
[https://socialfixer.com/](https://socialfixer.com/)

------
0db532a0
In 2013 I left Facebook. I decided who I wanted to stay in contact with and
sent a message to each one explaining that I was leaving. I asked them to
email me if they wanted to stay in contact. I am still in contact with every
person I wanted to stay in contact with.

------
andrewxhill
We posted this a while back, just a simple tool to make the photo exports a
bit better,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16682940](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16682940)

------
_Codemonkeyism
No one lost friends from deleting Facebook. I haven't.

------
mkaziz
Unfortunately, deleting facebook means losing captions on your photos. Most of
my college memories are captioned, so I can't just delete my account :(

------
Phenomenit
I have a account just for some niche buy and sell groups. No Pic no posts,
nothing. I can even use it as a SSO. The only info fb has is when and where.

------
capdeck
So, he downloaded his data from Facebook... and uploaded it to Google. I don't
know -- doesn't seem like anything has changed.

------
nvr219
Put on google to keep photos secure??

------
chrisper
I stopped using Facebook by deleting the app and only using the messenger app
and messenger.com

~~~
mrweasel
There a GDPR notification pending every time I login to Facebook. I don’t
really care to deal with it, so now I can’t use Facebook or Messenger.

------
snipem
Problem is if you leave Facebook you're not going to be invited for school
reunions.

~~~
quickthrower2
I disagree, to me that sounds like another reason to leave Facebook.

------
barrad0s
Deleted mine about 5 years ago, don't have any social media and I survived.

------
blancheneige
as a side note, keep in mind that with the option of downloading your entire
messaging history, it will be sent as an unencrypted zip file to your email
address. a surveillance dragnet dream come true.

------
fromthestart
Realistically, what are the odds that deleting a Facebook profile actually
removes one's data from Facebook's servers? It's far too easy to secretly
retain such data, and Zuckerberg has repeatedly demonstrated the requisite
malciousness.

~~~
motdiem
Technically, if you're EU based, you could ask for proof of deletion and/or
sue - not sure it's worth the effort though, especially since FB is keeping
shadow profiles of you anyway (so you may have deleted your profile, but
because your friends have your phone number, email, etc facebook doesn't
actually need you to have a profile to track you now...)

------
gammateam
"GOOD MORNING!

Want to see someone getting killed by police and watch your friends quickly
get baited by Russians to form to actual American protests related to their
preconceived notions?

No? Well its already playing enjoy! but be careful where you tap because IF
YOU LIKE ANYTHING you'll lose half of your friends in real life but thats okay
because we were only going to show you more of this exact thing regardless"

~~~
andygates
> watch your friends quickly get baited

Yeah, that's a good sign that you need smarter friends.

Autoplay is cancer, though.

------
okmokmz
I've always felt that if deleting facebook caused me to loose contact with
someone entirely, we probably weren't really friends in the first place

~~~
elhudy
Acquaintances who happened to have made great point-in-time connections should
be viewed as potential "real" friends. I've met amazing people around the
world who I would hate to sever connections with, but, by realities of living
busy lives on opposite sides of the world, we don't communicate regularly.

We've reconnected through work/vacation travels and been ecstatic about having
local tour guides. For these connections, facebook has been my only lifeline
as the commonality between us.

------
doon123
There is a IPCC report out today about climate change and how it would destroy
the world as we know it.

Yet, people are more worried about Facebook! Amazing!!!

~~~
saagarjha
Can’t we be worried about both?

~~~
doon123
Well, considering that the IPCC story is nowhere to be seen on the front page
and this being at the top, shows how much general HN crowd worries about
Climate change as compared to Facebook. Such Myopia is what has landed us in
this crisis in the first place.

But you should not bother. Go worry about the useless photos that you first
upload to facebook and then wonder what a for profit company is going to do
with all that data.

~~~
greglindahl
The IPCC report is currently # 29.

