News outlets have been covering an upcoming change to Facebook, reporting that users photos will be deleted if they don’t download the new Moments app by July 7.
Naturally, folks are panicking.
What the news outlets have not properly explained is that Facebook is NOT deleting all your photos. The images that the change will affect are only your Synced Photos, an album of pictures that were synced from your phone to Facebook to potentially be shared at a later date.
You can see the album I’m referring to by accessing the Facebook app on your phone. From there, visit your profile page and click photos. Across the top of that screen, you’ll see the options above.
If you click on Synced, you’ll get a warning from Facebook (see left) alerting you that photo syncing is no longer possible and that the new Moments app should be downloaded to access and privately share your photos.
So what to do if you don’t want your synced photos deleted? Either download the free Moments app on your phone BEFORE JULY 7, or download all your synced pics straight to your computer.
If you do neither, the synced photos in that album will be purged some time after July 7. If these are not images you’re worried about saving, then don’t sweat this change.
The official statement from Facebook’s blog assured users that even if photos are deleted, this will not affect any other photos or videos shared on Facebook separately from the specially synced album.
Here are some additional details via a CBS News article:
The phone-syncing function was launched in 2012 to make it easy to share these photos online at a later time if you didn’t want them immediately uploaded to your profile. This feature is being phased out because Facebook wants to place the emphasis on Moments.
The Moments app has been around for about a year now. It can scan your images to pinpoint familiar faces and identify them with specific Facebook friends. The app also allows users to group images by events, and share them directly with the people who are tagged.
Read more on Facebook’s upcoming change. Call 618 Creative if you need help with your Facebook page!