With Facebook’s increasing focus on photos and videos, many users find themselves wondering where their old albums have gone when using the Facebook mobile app. The mobile app has a different layout and organization than the desktop site, which can make it confusing to find your old albums at first.
What Happened to Albums on Facebook Mobile?
Facebook albums still exist on mobile, but accessing them requires using the menu button in the top right corner of the app. Tapping this brings up a menu where “Photos” is one of the options. Under the Photos section, you will find any albums you have created over the years on Facebook.
So in summary, to find your albums on the Facebook mobile app:
- Tap the menu button (three line icon) in the top right
- Select “Photos” from the menu
- This will bring up a page with all your albums sorted by recency
Facebook decided to simplify the mobile interface by putting more focus on recent photos and the photo posting process. But rest assured, your old albums are still there under the Photos menu!
Viewing Your Albums
Once you navigate to the Photos page on mobile, you will see thumbnail previews of all your albums in chronological order. The most recent album will be at the top. You can scroll down to go further back in time through your album history.
Tapping on any album thumbnail will open that album. You can then view the photos in that album, comment on them, share them, or save them to your device.
So despite the simplified interface, you have full access to your albums. It just takes an extra tap to get to them compared to the desktop experience. Just remember to use that menu button in the top right of the app!
Creating New Albums
In addition to accessing your existing albums, you can also create new albums directly from the Facebook mobile app.
To create a new album:
- Go to the Photos page as explained above using the menu button
- Tap the “+” icon in the top right corner
- Give your album a name and description
- Tap “Create Album” when finished
You can then add photos and videos to your new album by tapping the “+” icon from your News Feed and selecting images to add.
Managing Album Photos
When viewing one of your albums, you have options to manage the photos and videos in that album.
Tapping the 3 dots “More” icon in the top right of an album will bring up the following options:
- Edit Photos: Add, remove or rearrange photos in the album
- Edit Album: Change the album name, description, privacy, etc
- Notifications: Turn notifications on for the album to get updates when people interact with it
- Transfer Album: Move the album to another account or Page you manage
- Delete Album: Permanently delete the album
Using these options, you have full control over your albums directly from the Facebook mobile app, similar to the desktop experience.
Sharing Albums
You can also share your albums with friends right from the mobile app using the share icon:
- Tap the share icon from an album page (icon with arrow pointing upward)
- Select how you want to share – message, post to feed, via link, etc
- Choose who to share with
- Tap “Share” to share the album
The album privacy will remain the same regardless of how you share it. So if the album is set to Only Me, your friends will still need your approval to view it even if you share a link with them.
Downloading Your Albums
If you want to save copies of your Facebook albums to your mobile device or computer, you can download them using the Facebook mobile app.
To download an album:
- Open the album you want to download
- Tap the 3 dots “More” icon in the top right
- Select “Download Album”
This will save a copy of the album to your camera roll or downloads folder depending on your device. You can then access the photos offline or transfer them somewhere else.
Album Privacy and Security
As mentioned above, existing album privacy settings remain the same even when sharing albums or accessing them from mobile. But it’s important to understand how album privacy works on Facebook in general.
When you first create an album, the privacy defaults to Friends unless you change it. Privacy options include:
- Public: Anyone including people off Facebook can see the album
- Friends: Your friends on Facebook can see the album
- Specific friends: Only certain friends you select can see the album
- Only me: Only you can access the album
These options are available on both mobile and desktop so you can control album visibility in the way that suits you best. Remember that tagging friends in photos automatically gives them access to the album as well.
Caution Sharing Old Albums
Use privacy settings cautiously when sharing older albums from many years ago. Your comfort levels and what you want to share publicly may have changed since an album was created.
Do a thorough privacy check of any album before sharing it more widely, especially albums from your teenage years or other sensitive phases of life.
Conclusion
Facebook albums are still accessible from the mobile app, but take an extra tap to get to compared to desktop. Use the menu button to navigate to Photos and see your albums.
You can view, manage, share, and download albums from mobile just like on desktop. Privacy settings remain consistent across platforms as well.
So rest assured your treasured photo albums are still there on Facebook mobile, with full functionality to enjoy those memories from anywhere.