Capturing content from specific date ranges on Facebook
NOTICE! As of May 2020, Facebook is rolling out changes to its interface and infrastructure. As a result, some features have experienced disruption, inculding the date breakdown menthods mentioned below. We are actively monitoring the rollout and updates to functionality and will continue to update this page.
In the meantime, we recommend using Classic Facebook mode rather than using the new layout (if your account has access). To switch back to Classic, click the down arrow in the upper right corner and select "Switch to Classic Facebook." The Navigation Bar method below is still working in Classic Mode as of May 15, 2020.
The methods in this article apply to personal profile timelines only. If you are capturing a page for a business or a public person, these methods do not apply.
We can help with Page Vault on Demand Don’t forget that Page Vault can collect the timeline of a profile for you! Facebook Timelines start at $269 for Page Vault Browser clients. Quotes are free and there’s no commitment—just tell us what you need on our Quote Request Form.
Navigation Bar Method
On the profile you want to capture, scroll down just a little bit until you see a banner across the top.
Click on “Recent” to get a drop-down menu with years. Select the year that you would like to capture. At this point, you can further select to jump to a month within that year.
Note:the top of the timeline now begins at the selected year or month, but it does not restrict the timeline to only that time period. If you continue to scroll to load additional posts, it will continue to load prior time periods—for instance, if you select 2015 and keep scrolling, eventually posts for 2014 and 2013 will also load.
Please read the rest of the instructions if you do not want to capture the entire remainder of the timeline.
If you are trying to capture everything from the selected date onward, run your capture as you would any other Facebook capture.
If only posts from a given time subset—e.g. a certain year or month—are desired, we recommend a two-step process rather than using the built in scroll and open comments:
When you click "Expand", select "scroll to the bottom"
Monitor the scrolling, and once you have loaded the correct date range, hit "Stop" on the Expander
Click "Expand" again, and select “open comments on currently loaded posts."
Once the comments have been expanded, use the "Capture" button to collect the loaded and expanded posts.
Date method: by month
NOTICE!As of May 11, 2020, this method is experiencing issues. If you try this method and only get a blank page, we recommend trying the Navigation Bar Method instead.
In the browser URL bar, type the profile URL (e.g. facebook.com/user.name)
At the end of the URL, add in /timeline/YYYY/M, where:
YYYY is the 4-digit year you want to collect
M is the 1 or 2 digit month you want to collect. Do NOT add a zero in front of single-digit months. June, for example, should just be /6 not /06
So to return all posts from March 2017, you would go to: facebook.com/user.name/timeline/2017/3
Use the Facebook Expander to scroll, open comments and replies, and capture. (See Basic Facebook Captures for more information.)
Repeat for each month that you want to capture until complete.
Date method: by year
NOTICE!As of May 11, 2020, this method is experiencing issues. If you try this method and only get a blank page, we recommend trying the Navigation Bar Method instead.
In the browser URL bar, type the profile URL (e.g. facebook.com/user.name)
At the end of the URL, add in /timeline/YYYY, where:
YYYY is the 4-digit year you want to collect
So to return all posts from 2017, you would go to: facebook.com/user.name/timeline/2017
Use the Facebook Expander to scroll, open comments and replies, and capture. (See Basic Facebook Captures for more information.)
Repeat for each month that you want to capture until complete.
