Facebook does a number of things very well, and in it’s defence, the social networking giant possesses a lot of innovative features. However, at the time of writing Facebook hasn’t yet graced us with the functionality to download a photo album with a simplicity of a single button press. I would imagine that such a feature would be met with the warmest of welcomes if it was to be implemented, as many users not only use Facebook as a storage/backup medium for there sizable photo albums, but are also keen to take copies of photos uploaded by others, for themselves. We all like to document our lives with photos, and although Facebook does a good job of centralising this media, it’s never a bad idea to have a backup on your own computer too.

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All is not lost however, as there are 2 very popular methods available by which to automate this process. Currently though, there is only one viable way by which to perform this feat – Firefox extensions. I’m sure there are adequate alternatives for Google Chrome, Apple Safari and Internet Explorer users, however this article will only focus on Mozilla Firefox.

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The first method I’m going to show you is via a Firefox Extension available directly from the Mozilla add-ons Library, affectionately dubbed FacePad. This downloader tool adds a small extension to the right-click menu, enabling the user to download an entire Photo Album with one click of the mouse. It’s that kind of simplicity that makes an add-on popular, however there have been a number of reported problems with this extension. Take external comments with a pinch of salt though; I can safely say that I didn’t encounter any problems what so ever, during a brief trial period. The only downside with FacePAD as it stands now, is that you cannot change the predetermined download folder through which your images are saved, and you cannot specify names for the images before they’re downloaded either. Instead you are confronted with some ridiculous cryptic alphanumeric combination of characters, as opposed to a nicely descriptive file name, which is incredibly annoying and tedious to rectify. With that in mind though, it works, and it works well. If i’ve peaked your interested with this article, you can grab FacePAD here!

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The second method of downloading Photo Albums is via an actual program you can install, available for either Windows or Mac, known as FotoBounce. This works in a similar way to FacePAD,  integrating itself within your web browser, which works well within Firefox but not so well elsewhere, i.e. Safari or Chrome. Although the two share a number of similarities, the method by which to download photos from a friends album through FotoBounce is slightly different, and rather more complex. To do this, you need to use the FotoBounce program itself, tie it into your Facebook account and then search for your friends media using the program UI. You can then select to download their photos via some right click trickery, however this is nowhere near as efficient as the ability to download directly from Facebook through your web browser, in lieu of FacePAD. This inconvenience though is offset by the number of other features that are available in FotoBounce. While these impressive features don’t have a place in this article, I’ve attached a YouTube video below that highlights these features, which you can view at your own leisure. You can also read more and download FotoBounce here!

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On reflection, I would recommend the use of FacePAD, due to the simplicity and direct integration this Firefox extension offers, but I implore you to experiment with whatever method suits you best.

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