# Can we talk about Facebook and Photos **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 13, 2016, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-talk-about-facebook-and-photos/757251 "2016-06-13T14:11:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2016, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-talk-about-facebook-and-photos/757251/1 "2016-06-13T14:11:48Z")
(Let me preface this by owning that I am considerably techno challenged. I don’t code, or game, just stumble about the web mostly. ) I’m reading in the news about how FB are going to force people to move to their photo app (much like they successfully did with messenger). I understand this part. And if your photos were synced, not manually loaded, they will disappear if you don’t get the app. (Hope I got this part right?) I don’t really know what syncing they mean. Do they mean when I sync my iPad to my desktop to download photos! Or are they talking about syncing a camera to (what device I’m unsure, desktop? iPad? Phone? ) Facebook and loading a whole slew of pictures at once? And I have no real idea what they mean by ‘manually’ loading, to be honest. Apparently they are unaware of the aging demographic using their platform, who may, like me, have no clear idea what they are on about. Why haven’t they even bothered to tell us how to determine which photos were loaded which way? And where are the photos going to disappear from? Photo alubums on FB? From my posting history? Timeline? Other people’s timelines? What if I took the photos with my iPad or iPod, and then uploaded them to FB? What if I airdropped from the iPod to the iPad and posted to FB from there? Are they at risk of being deleted? I have no idea! Colour me unimpressed with FB for this, and enormously confused, too. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2016, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-talk-about-facebook-and-photos/757251/2 "2016-06-13T14:20:56Z")
Story here [Facebook will delete your backed-up photos if you don’t install Moments app](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/13/facebook-delete-photos-moments-app) > [@](#): > > Facebook will delete all the photos users have synced from the main Facebook app if they do not install its dedicated photo-sharing app Moments before 7 July. > The social network began notifying users that it would soon delete all their synced photos if they did not install the app, which was released in June 2015. > > Many users used the photo syncing feature, which was introduced in 2012 and promised unlimited automatic photo uploads from users’ smartphones into a private album on the social network, as a way of backing up their photo collection in much the same way Google’s Photos, Yahoo’s Flickr and Apple’s iCloud Photos currently do. > > In January Facebook discontinued support for automatic syncing of photos from the main Facebook app, forcing users to install the Moments app should they wish to continue automatically uploading their photos. Now Facebook will delete all their synced photos unless users install the Moments app. > > Facebook said: “Photos you privately synced from your phone to Facebook will be deleted soon. Earlier this year, they were moved to Moments, a new app from Facebook. If you want to keep these photos, download and log into Moments before 7 July. If you don’t want Moments, download these photos directly to your computer from your Facebook profile before 7 July.” > > The removal of the synced photos won’t affect any photos or videos shared on Facebook separately from the synced album, while users are being given the chance to download the photos before they are deleted. > > The move shouldn’t come as a surprise; Facebook recently did a very similar thing with its Messenger app. By removing chat from the main Facebook app and forcing users to install the dedicated Messenger app to keep sending Facebook instant messages on smartphones it propelled the app to more than 900 million users. > > In doing so it created another massive platform, leveraging its existing user base to drive adoption and attract new users that may not necessarily have had Facebook accounts before. > > By turning off photo syncing from the main Facebook app, and now threatening to delete synced photos, it has forced Moments up into the top 100 free Android and iOS apps in the UK, and made it the third most popular free app on iOS and second most popular on Google Play in the US, as well as topping the charts for photo and video apps. > > Facebook did not respond to request for comment ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2016, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-talk-about-facebook-and-photos/757251/3 "2016-06-13T14:48:09Z")
It’s not the aging demographic that’s confused. I’m 37 and use FB all day every day and it took me a minute to figure out as well. Basically if you were using Facebook’s photo storage capabilities, you will need to retrieve all of your stored photos or move them to their new separate photo storage app if you don’t want to lose them. But only if you were using this feature, and only really if you do not have your own copies on your phone or somewhere else already. If you weren’t using this feature - that would pull all your photos from your device on to Facebook to store them (not to share them, that is different) - then you’ve got nothing to worry about. Photos that you posted to your wall, other people’s walls, your albums, etc. to share are safe. That’s a different thing. I honestly did not know that FB even offered this photo storage service so I am considering myself safe. And besides there is nothing I have that is exclusively on Facebook anyway. I think if you’re not aware of this Facebook photo archiving service, you’re safe. You’re not dumping any photos there. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2016, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-talk-about-facebook-and-photos/757251/4 "2016-06-13T16:01:41Z")
Thank you very much for clearing that up for me! I greatly appreciate it!