Going back a day on Facebook Memories can be useful if you want to re-experience or reshare a post from the previous day that didn’t show up in your current day’s Memories. However, Facebook’s Memories feature doesn’t provide a built-in way to jump back a single day. In this article, we’ll explain why you can’t readily go back a day on Facebook Memories and discuss some possible workarounds.
Why You Can’t Readily Go Back A Day On Facebook Memories
Facebook designed Memories to resurface posts from years past, not just the previous day. The point is to let you re-live meaningful life events and connections, not just recent posts. So Memories does not have a feature or setting to let you decrement the date by a single day.
Specifically, Memories selects content to show you each day based on the below criteria:
- Posts you’ve shared or been tagged in that are at least 1 year old
- Major life events like weddings, birthdays, graduations, etc.
- Posts that received lots of likes, comments, or other engagement
- Posts involving relationships and connections you still interact with regularly
Facebook wants Memories to resurface your most meaningful moments over the years – not just day-old posts. So you can’t readily go back in time by a single day.
Workarounds To View The Previous Day’s Memories
While you can’t directly go back a day in Memories, there are some workarounds:
Adjust Your System Clock
One option is to manually adjust your computer or phone’s internal clock back one day. Then when you open Facebook, it will think it’s the previous day and generate Memories based on that adjusted date.
However, this approach has some downsides:
- It can mess up other apps and timed functions on your device.
- You have to constantly keep changing your clock forward and backward.
- Facebook may detect the inaccurate time and not show the expected Memories.
So while possible, this method is fairly impractical in most cases.
Use Facebook’s Download Your Information Tool
Facebook allows you to download all your personal data, including your entire history of posts and interactions. You can request this data export via Facebook’s Settings page under “Your Facebook Information.”
Once you download your archive, you can search through your historical posts to find content from the date you want to revisit. It’s cumbersome, but does allow you to access old posts without relying on Memories.
The downsides are it can take Facebook up to a few days to compile your full archive, and you need to dig through a huge file to find the exact date you want. But it is doable if you really need to access a specific day’s posts.
Browse Your Timeline And Activity Log
Finally, you can try manually browsing your Facebook Timeline or Activity Log to access older posts. This only works reliably for content posted within the last few months though.
To view your Timeline, click on your profile picture and select “View As.” This will display a chronological view of your recent posts.
Similarly, your Activity Log under Settings lists all your engagement and content from the last few months. You can scroll back day by day to find a specific date’s posts.
Again, this only works for relatively recent content, as Facebook does not show your years-old Timeline activity or posts. But for dates within the last month or two, you can likely access content this way without using Memories.
Why You Might Want To Access The Previous Day’s Memories
Here are some common reasons you may want to go back a single day in Facebook Memories:
- To reshare an important post that didn’t show up in the current day’s Memories.
- To re-experience or show someone else an interesting post from yesterday.
- To copy the text or media from a post you want to reuse or reference.
- To confirm the exact date or details of an event or life moment.
- To retrieve a post you accidentally deleted shortly after sharing.
In most cases, the workarounds above should allow you to access the Memories or posts you want from a specific date, even if you can’t directly go back a day in Memories. However, it requires some extra effort compared to a native “Go Back 1 Day” feature.
Why Facebook Doesn’t Allow Going Back A Day In Memories
Facebook likely designed Memories this way for a few key reasons:
Encourages Long-Term Nostalgia
By focusing on older nostalgic content, Memories provides a purposefully selective view of your most meaningful memories over time. If you could readily access any day, it would dilute this effect.
Avoids Feature Bloat
Facebook is already complex enough without adding niche features like going back a single day. This would overcomplicate what’s intended to be a pleasant nostalgia generator.
Technical Limitations
There may be technical hurdles to showing Memories on demand for a given date, especially as users’ histories grow over time. So only displaying pre-selected content daily simplifies things.
Advertising and Engagement Focus
Facebook’s Al algorithmically selects Memories content to drive engagement, shares, and ad revenue. Letting you select dates could disrupt this optimized curation.
So in summary – while convenient for users – letting you readily go back a day in Memories would undermine Facebook’s strategic goals for the feature.
The Bottom Line
While you can’t natively go back a single day in Facebook Memories, workarounds like adjusting your device clock or downloading your full Facebook history can provide access to old posts when needed. Just don’t expect an official “Go Back 1 Day” option anytime soon. Facebook intentionally designed Memories as a nostalgic look back over years, not days.
But if you want to reminisce about or reuse a recent post, your Timeline, Activity Log, and Facebook data archive should have you covered, even without the help of Memories. So you can still get to that memorable post from yesterday – with a little extra work.