How to download personal data from the Internet: backups of social networks, messengers and storage

How to Save Data Articles

If you store important information in the cloud, treasure emails, posts on social networks, and chats, a copy of this data can come in handy.

How to Save Social Media Data?

If you’ve been on social media for a long time, you’ll probably want to save your posts and maybe some of your comments.

Save Instagram Data

Instagram

This social network allows you to save your entire account with posts, comments, and reactions.

You have several options for downloading your Instagram data.

Through the app

In the Instagram app, you need to open your profile, click on “Other” (the three horizontal bars) and select “Your Activity.”

To save all the data, you will need to open the first item “Download information.” Here, the email address linked to the account will automatically be listed, but you can enter a different one. Next, you need to click on the blue “Request File” button. This is where Instagram will ask for your account password.

Within 48 hours, the email will receive a link to the file, which will contain all profile information, comments, photos, posts and more. Through the site To request a data archive through the site, you’ll need to open your profile and click on “Edit Profile.”

Via the site

To request a data archive online you will need to open your profile and click on “Edit Profile”.

You will then need to open the Privacy and Security section and scroll down the page to “Download Data”. The only button you need is the “Request File” button.

Next, the procedure is similar to the one in the app – the site will prompt you to enter your email address and select the file format, it is better to choose HTML. After that, Instagram will ask for your account password and send the file to the specified email.

The link sent to the email will be valid for a limited time. If you do not have time to download all the information, you will have to request the data again, but the social network will be blocked by that time.

To do this on your smartphone, go to “Your actions” → “Download information”, on the computer, go to “Privacy and security” → “Download information”.

Then enter your password and email address and click “Request Data.” The archive will be ready within 48 hours and you will receive a download link by email.

Save instagram Data

Save Facebook Data

facebook messenger hack

On this social network, you can save a history of your posts, comments, and other activity for any period from one day to the lifetime of your account. To do this, go to the settings page and select “Your Facebook Information” → “Download Information. In the app: “Settings and Privacy” → “Settings” → “Download your information.

There are a lot of download settings, all are selected by default, but you do not have to save everything at once. You can leave the most important items – publications, comments and reactions, groups, profile information, friends, and followers.

When the archive is complete, you will receive a notification on Facebook and can download it. You will have to enter your Facebook password to save the data on your computer or smartphone.

Save Twitter Data

This social network doesn’t let you choose which account data to save, but all posts, comments and reactions as well as profile settings will be added to the archive.

To request information from your computer, tap More → Settings and Privacy → Privacy and Security → Personalization and Data → See your Twitter data.

If you want to save the archive in the smartphone memory, go to the application menu → “Settings and Privacy” → “Account” → “Data and access rights” → “Your Twitter data”.

After confirming your password, click “Request Archive”. When it is ready, you will receive an email and an in-app notification.

Save TikTok Data

This social network uploads your data in a single archive: profile information, videos, comments, likes, favorites.

To request an archive of your account, go to “Privacy” → “Personalization and data” and select “Download your data”. When the archive is ready, in the same menu will appear the option “Download data”.

How to save messenger data

Messengers often store not only correspondence and photos, but also necessary files, passwords and a lot of other valuable information.

Save WhatsApp Data

WhatsApp

In the messenger, you can request information about account settings or save chats.

Copies of chats are automatically saved in smartphone memory every day. But you can also store correspondence in the cloud or on your computer:

  • Google Drive. To set up a backup of all correspondence, go to “Settings” → “Chats” → “Chat backup”. If there is no copy or it was saved a long time ago, click “Backup” and below select the frequency of data saving to Disk;
  • On your smartphone. To save an individual chat, go to it, select “More” → “Export Chat” from the menu on the right. You can save only the correspondence without photos and videos, or the whole chat – and send files, for example, to your email or the cloud, and from there download to your computer;
  • To iCloud. You can save all your conversations in “Settings” → “Chats” → “Backup” → “Create a copy”. There you can also select the automatic saving and its frequency;
  • On iPhone. To save a specific chat, enter it, click on the name of a contact or group, then click “Export Chat” and send it, for example, to e-mail or another messenger, and then save it to your computer. You can save the chat with or without photos and videos.

Save WhatsApp Data

Save Telegram Data

telegram hack

You can download the correspondence in this messenger only through the Telegram Desktop app for Windows, macOS or Linux.

After installation, Telegram Desktop will ask you to scan the QR code through the Telegram app on your smartphone. You can download both the entire correspondence archive and individual chats to your computer.

Viber data. To save a copy to the cloud, go to “More” → “Settings” → “Account” → “Backup”. You can run it manually or on a schedule.

You can save a copy of your account data under “Privacy” → “Personal data” → “Request data”. The app will tell you that you will have to wait up to 14 days for them, but I received the file in seven minutes.

If you want to save messages on your computer and not depend on the Internet, you will have to install an older version of Viber – no higher than 10.5. It still had such an option in the menu “Settings” → “Calls and messages” → “Send message history”. For example, you can send the archive by email. But do not forget to make a backup copy in the cloud first – you will have to restore it in the installed old version of Viber.

The old version of the messenger may not be installed on your smartphone. If saving the archive outside the cloud is critical, find your old phone and install the app on it. For example, I managed to install version 10.5 on Xiaomi Redmi 4 Pro.

Find old Viber can be found by querying Viber 10.5 apk in the search engine, but download app installers from unofficial resources at your own risk – they may be broken or infected.

How to download data from Google

Google Save Data

Google has made sure that users can quickly and easily save all the information they may need. There is a special tool for this purpose – “Google Archivator”.

What is “Google Archivator” and how to use it. To download anything you might need, go to the “Google Archivator” page. Choose what data you want to save. There are now 48 items on the list.

What data you can download. You can save everything without sorting it out, or select the most important sections from the ones you’ve been using:

  • “Google Account” – account registration and statistics;
  • “Google Drive” – all Google Docs files: documents, tables, presentations, forms;
  • “Gmail” – all Gmail emails, files, and settings;
  • “Google Contacts” – all the list of contacts from the account;
  • “Google Calendars” – all the events marked in the Google calendar;
  • “Maps” – all your settings and saved places, separately in the next item “Maps (your places)” you can select reviews;
  • Hangouts – chat history, as well as photos and videos from them;
  • Chrome – all the settings, history and bookmarks of the Google Chrome browser;
  • “Google Photos – all saved photos and videos;
  • Google Pay – all your bank card and payment data;
  • “YouTube and YouTube Music” – all files, comments, browsing and search history, videos from your own profile.

Be careful: “Google Drive” can contain hundreds of gigabytes of data, saving it can take several days. To avoid downloading all the data from “Disk” to your computer, click the “Select all Disk data” button in the “Disk” section and cancel downloading of unnecessary folders. The same with video: in the “YouTube and YouTube Music” block, click the “Select all YouTube data” button and uncheck the “Video” box.

After selecting the types of data you want in your account, click “Next.” Now choose where to download the data: to your computer or to one of the cloud storage – Disk, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box. I recommend keeping one copy on your computer or an external drive, the second can be added to the cloud.

How often to save – once or every two months is up to you. The archive can be packaged in ZIP or TGZ, the first option can be opened on any computer and smartphone, it’s the best solution.

You can also split the archive into parts of 1, 2, 4, 10 or 50 GB. This will not affect the speed of the archive creation. For example, my data archive took about 30 GB not including YouTube videos.

When the file export is finished, you will receive an email from “Google Archivator” with the subject “Your data from your Google account is ready to be downloaded”. You will be able to download them immediately by clicking the button in the email, or click “Go to export management” and click “Download” there. The archives are available for a week after you receive the email, then you’ll have to create them again.

How to download data from Apple iCloud

Data on Apple devices is backed up every day. If you save manually, you’ll have to do it separately with each service. Here’s how to save information across different Apple services.

On your computer, to download photos and videos from iCloud, go to Photos, select the files you want, and click Download. On iPhone or iPad, the path will be as follows: “Photos” → select files → “More” → “Download”. Videos and photos will be saved in the archive. To save any other files also select them and press “Download”.

To save contacts from iCloud, open “Contacts”, go to “All contacts”, click any contact. Then click “Edit” → “Select All” and save the contacts to your computer.

To save emails, select the desired iCloud mailbox and click “Mailbox” → “Export Mailbox”.

To export the calendar, select the desired one, then “File” → “Export” → “Export”.

To save your bookmarks in the Safari browser, select “File” → “Export Bookmarks” and the location to save the file.

How to download emails and files from the cloud

You probably also use many other cloud services and applications. We’ll describe some of the most popular ones.

Download Dropbox data

This cloud file storage has probably the easiest way to download data: select the folders or files you want and click “Download”.

Download Notion data

To save important data from this service, go to Settings and Members → Settings and click Export all workspace content.

In the free version, you can only export in CSV or HTML format. In the paid version, you can also choose PDF. You will be able to download all or no attachments and images. The archive will be saved to your computer or smartphone.

Download Trello Data

You can’t save task lists and other data from the free version of Trello, but you can create a file with your profile, boards, and workspace settings. To do this, open the Trello settings and click the “Download Personal Data” button at the bottom of the page. The JSON file will open in a new window, but if you’re not a developer, it’s unlikely to be useful.

In the paid version of Trello Premium, you can download all the information from the account in JSON or CSV formats, as well as in the original archive format.

Download Evernote data

You can only save notes or notebooks in the Evernote app for your computer:

  • Select the notebook or notes to export.
  • Right-click and click Export.
  • Choose a format – HTML or ENEX.
  • Determine if you need additional information – date the note was created, author of the note.
  • Click Export.

Other services and applications

In one article it is impossible to name all the ways to download data from all the programs that you can use. If it is possible to save information, it will certainly be written about it with the help of the application or service. Another option is to look for ways to download data through search engines.

Paul

Paul Num is the founder and editor of deteced.com, has more than 5 years of experience in social media marketing, and is an expert in finance and insurance. Paul has extensive experience working for insurance and financial companies and has done testing and written numerous articles.

Paul has been quoted and mentioned by major publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, WikiHow, and many others. In his spare time, Paul runs, hikes, and travels.

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