If you use Facebook regularly, you have probably deleted at least a few of your pictures, comments, posts, and your messages. Maybe you don’t like one of your profile pictures or a particular status update. You might have felt annoyed because of a chat group and deleted it. Now, for some reason, you need the information that you have already erased but don’t know how to restore your deleted Facebook data. If that’s the case, don’t worry. In this guide, we will show you how to recover deleted Facebook data and chats with a few steps. You will also learn how to take proper precautions, so you can still retrieve your Facebook data even if you have deleted them for a long time. Let’s dive in.
Recover Facebook Data Using Settings
One of the best ways to restore your deleted Facebook data is to go through the Settings option in it. This method can recover your deleted posts, recently deleted texts, pictures, videos, and almost any kind of erased data. However, even this method has a very low chance of retrieving messages that have been deleted for years. But for every other data except the messages, this method is a perfect way to recover them. Here’s how to do it:
- Open Facebook on your computer and sign in to your account.
- Note. To follow this method, you need to open Facebook using a browser. You can’t use this method in the Facebook app.
- Next, click on the downward arrow in the upper-right corner of Facebook.
- Once the drop-down menu pops up, click on the “Settings & Privacy” option and then click on the “Settings” option.
- Next, you will get into the “General Settings” menu before clicking on “Your Facebook Information.”
- Now, on the right panel, click on the “Download Your Information” option.
- In the next menu, select all the information you want to download including your texts, pictures, videos, comments, and even the post reactions.
- Select the date range and downloaded file format and click on the “Create File” button.
- With this, Facebook will assemble the files you choose.
- The process will take a while, so Facebook will notify you once the assembly of your files is complete. You can get your previous files in the “Available Copies” tab.
- Once assembling the files is finished, click on the “Download” button on the right side of your file.
- You’ve now successfully downloaded your relevant Facebook data, even if it was removed.
Note: Once a file is ready, you must download it within a few days. If you don’t do so after the assembling process is complete, the file will expire. If this happens, you will need to re-assemble your files again using the same steps above. Only after that, it will be available for download once again.
Recover Deleted Facebook Chats
When we say deleted Facebook data, we often talk about the deleted Facebook messages and chat histories. Sometimes, we might end up deleting a particular chat or message, only to regret our decisions later. So, in this section, we will show you how to recover your deleted Facebook messages.
Check the Archived Chats
On Facebook, we often archive our chats instead of outright deleting them. So, if you can’t find any particular chat in your Facebook messages, you should find it in the archived messages first. Here’s how you can do it:
- Go to Facebook and click on the “Messenger” symbol.
- At the bottom of the messenger, click on the “See all in Messenger” option.
- In the left panel, click on the “…” icon to open a drop-down menu.
- Next, click on the “Archived Chats” option.
- Now, all you have to do is scroll down and find the chat you’re looking for. Once you find the right chat, click on it.
Request A Copy of the Messages from the Recipients
If you don’t find the message you’re looking for in the Archived chats, you might really have deleted the chat. And once you do so, it’s lost from your chat history forever. But that doesn’t mean that the situation is hopeless. You can always ask the recipient of the messages to send you a copy of the messages.
You may ask the other recipient to screenshot the important parts of your chats and send them to you as well. The other recipient can even download just the chat data between you and them using the very first method mentioned in this article and send it over to you. This will save you from going through a lot of trouble.
Check the Email to Recover Facebook Data
The last method to get your erased Facebook chats is the email ID associated with Facebook. If you have your email notifications activated on Facebook, the messages will still be in your email inbox, even if that chat is long since removed from your Facebook account. This lets you read the messages of the other recipient without a hitch.
Taking Precautions
Like we already mentioned, you can find your Facebook messages in your email inbox if the email notification feature is active. Therefore, you should enable your email notification feature to receive the Facebook messages in your email inbox. Follow the steps below to do it:
- Open your Facebook account on the Desktop and click on the downward-facing arrow icon in the upper-right corner of your screen.
- Once the drop-down menu pops up, click on the “Settings & Privacy” option and then click on the “Settings” option.
- On the left panel, click on “Notifications.”
- Next, on the right panel, scroll down and click on the “Email” option.
- Choose the “All notifications, except the ones you turn off” option.
And that’s it. Now, you will receive your messages in your email inbox. And you won’t lose them even if you erase your conversations accidentally.
