Ever get the feeling that Australia (and many other countries) are left out when it comes to new features and products thanks to some very US-centric companies. Usually though most of these hardware or software features do eventually make it to our shores weeks or months later but this one is different — it actually landed in Asia-Pacific well before the US.
Facebook has launched a file sharing tool that gives the user to transfer their Facebook photos and videos to Google Photos — done as a large batch through the “Your Facebook Information” menu in Facebook settings. The option called “Transfer a Copy of Your Photos or Videos” gives the user the ability to download their Facebook information directly or to transfer it to Google Photos.
At Facebook, we believe that if you share data with one service, you should be able to move it to another. That’s the principle of data portability, which gives people control and choice while also encouraging innovation. Today, we’re releasing a tool that will enable Facebook users to transfer their Facebook photos and videos directly to other services, starting with Google Photos.
The new option has been made available today in the US and Canada but has been available for Australians since late February. Although you have been able to download your data from Facebook for quite a while now this new implementation of a direct transfer is the result of a collaboration with Google, Microsoft, Twitter and Facebook.
You would expect the data transfer tool to roll out to other services including OneDrive with Twitter also implementing it sometime soon. For those who live their lives on Facebook this could be a very welcome tool so if you haven’t heard of it already go and give it a shot and back up all your photos and videos.
