Facebook's tool will now let you transfer media to Google Photos: Here's how you can use it

Facebook is the biggest social media platform with around 1.7 billion users. It handles plenty of photos and videos on a daily basis. Now, the company has announced a new transfer tool that will allow users to offload some of those photos and videos to Google Photos.

Facebook’s Google Photos transfer tool was previously announced in the US and Canada back in April but is now available globally. The idea behind it is to allow users to conveniently transfer media data from one service to another. The new tool allows you to create copies of all your photos and videos on your Facebook account and transfer them to a linked Google Photos one.

How to use Facebook’s new data transfer tool? - Log into Facebook, and then open Facebook 'Settings'

- Select 'Your Facebook Information'

- Click 'Transfer a copy your Photos or Videos'

- Enter your password, choose a destination and confirm the transfer

Facebook’s Director of Privacy and Public Policy, Steve Satterfield, said; “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, (June 5) we are releasing a tool that will enable Facebook users to transfer their Facebook photos and videos directly to other services, starting with Google Photos.”

Facebook’s transfer tool currently only works with Google Photos. However, The Verge reported that users would also be able to transfer photos to other companies that join the data transfer programme. The initiative was established in 2018 between Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter.