So you thought that everything you posted on Facebook just fell off the bottom of the page and died a natural death? Wrong!  When the new Facebook timeline is unveiled all those posts and pieces of information will resurface and reveal themselves, to you and to whoever else you have granted access to through your privacy settings.

How much dirt does Facebook have on you?  Well you can find out!  You can download a copy of every piece of information you have shared on Facebook – your pictures, your videos, your messages, your wall – the whole lot!

Here is how you do it:

1. Go to “Account Settings” by clicking on the arrow in the top right hand side of your screen (in Facebook)
2. Under Language you will see a link “Download a copy of you Facebook data”
3. Depending on how extensive your Facebook history is, it can take some time to generate your archive
4. When your archive is ready to download (the prompts will tell that an email will be sent to you when the archive is ready to download, but if you have disabled all your email notifications, you won’t get receive in which case you need to access the download by following steps 1 & 2)

What you receive is EVERYTHING and it will be an interesting trip down memory lane (with a touch of cringe-worthiness mixed in for good measure) – when you are downloading this information Facebook do supply a warning with regards to what you do with the information which I strongly suggest you follow!

What should you do with this information?

Well Facebook is a big fan of “archiving” rather than deleting, so check your privacy settings to see who you are giving access to view your information.  You CAN delete posts and messages, but this can only be done one by one.  I have added my closest friends to my aptly named “close friends” lists and made this my custom setting for who can view all my posts.  I can then make a decision post by post whether I want to share that information with more people.

You will find a lot of wall postings in your archives that were generated by applications.  The way we use applications on Facebook is about to get a complete overhaul but I would still recommend removing any applications you are no longer using.  You can do this by going back into your “Account Settings” and choosing “Apps” from the left-hand menu.

Make sure you store your information is a secure location. Remember it is always important to take steps to protect your personal information, you never know who’s watching!

Want to know more about the new Facebook layout?