When you create a post on Facebook but don’t immediately publish it, where does it go? Facebook has a feature that allows users to save posts as drafts before publishing them. This can be useful if you want to take some time to review and edit a post before sharing it publicly.
Saving Posts as Drafts
To save a post as a draft on Facebook, simply create the post as usual but click on the downward arrow next to the “Post” button and select “Save Draft” instead. This will save the post without publishing it on your timeline. You can then find your draft posts by going to your profile page and clicking on “Drafts” in the left sidebar.
| Action | Result |
|---|---|
| Click “Save Draft” when composing a post | Post is saved as a draft without publishing |
| View drafts from profile page sidebar | See all unpublished draft posts in one place |
Draft posts are only visible to you, not your friends or followers. You can view, edit, delete, and publish drafts anytime from your profile drafts page.
Benefits of Saving Drafts
There are a few advantages to using Facebook’s draft feature:
- It allows you to compose posts at your leisure without having to publish them right away.
- You can save posts as drafts to review the content later when you have more time.
- Drafts allow you to edit and refine posts before publishing to ensure quality.
- You can save drafts to publish at a specific date and time in the future.
Overall, the drafts feature enables you to be more thoughtful and strategic with your Facebook posting. You don’t have to rushed into publishing content before it’s ready.
Edit and Refine Drafts
One of the main benefits of saving Facebook posts as drafts is the ability to edit them over time. After you’ve given yourself some distance from a draft post, reviewing it again allows you to refine the content and improve the quality before publishing. Here are some tips for refining draft posts:
- Read through the draft from start to finish looking for any clarity, grammar, or spelling issues.
- Check that the post is succinct and gets across your main point or message.
- Review the tone to ensure it aligns with your brand voice and is appropriate for your audience.
- Double check any links, images, videos, or other media in the post.
- Consider if the content would be better as a different format like multiple posts or a video.
Taking the time to polish up draft posts often leads to higher quality content that better engages your Facebook followers.
Schedule Posts for the Future
In addition to saving posts as drafts, Facebook also gives you the option to schedule published posts for a specific future date and time. This allows you to plan out and stagger your content in advance.
To schedule a post, follow these steps:
- Create the post as a draft as you normally would.
- When ready to publish, click on the downward arrow next to Post and select “Schedule Post.”
- Select the date and time you want the post to publish in the future.
- Click “Schedule” to queue the post to publish at the specified time.
Scheduling posts in advance can be a helpful way to manage your Facebook content planning and publishing. Here are some benefits of using scheduled posts:
- Allows you to space out your posts over days or weeks to prevent flooding your followers’ feeds.
- Lets you plan content around important dates, events, holidays, etc.
- Enables you to create and queue posts when you have time rather than rushing.
- Posting consistently at ideal high-traffic times (you can use Facebook Insights to find the best times for your audience).
Where Drafts Are Stored
So where exactly does Facebook store users’ unpublished draft posts on their servers? The specific storage details are proprietary information that Facebook does not make publicly available. However, we can make some educated guesses based on how other social networks handle drafts and unpublished content.
It’s most likely that Facebook stores draft posts in one or more dedicated databases that are separate from where they store live published posts. These draft post databases are only accessible and viewable to each individual user for their own drafts. Facebook uses access controls to ensure users can’t view each other’s unpublished content.
Logical Separation
From a database architecture perspective, it makes logical sense for Facebook to implement separate databases or tables for draft posts vs. live posts. Some reasons this separation makes sense:
- Allows the main post databases to scale and perform well without the overhead of draft management.
- Unpublished draft data doesn’t need to be replicated across Facebook’s many content delivery networks around the world like live posts.
- Access controls are simpler when drafts are logically separated in their own restricted databases.
- Storing drafts separately minimizes costs for Facebook since they use fewer resources.
Overall, the separation improves efficiency and reduces infrastructure costs related to unpublished draft content at Facebook’s enormous scale.
Data Encryption
In addition to logical separation, Facebook most likely encrypts draft post data at rest on their servers. Encryption provides an additional layer of privacy and security for users’ unreleased content. Specifically, Facebook probably employs per-user encryption keys that allow each account holder to decrypt and access only their own draft posts.
Encrypting unpublished draft data makes the information completely unusable even if accessed without authorization. Between encryption and logical database separation, users can feel confident their draft posts remain private and accessible only to themselves.
When Drafts Are Deleted
Draft posts don’t remain on Facebook’s servers indefinitely. The platform will eventually delete users’ unpublished drafts if they meet certain criteria. However, Facebook does not publicize the exact criteria or timeframe for draft deletion.
Based on anecdotal user reports, it seems Facebook may delete drafts that have gone unpublished for more than 3-6 months. Very old or abandoned drafts are likely removed to free up storage space on Facebook’s servers. This prevents their draft system from being overwhelmed by inactive, obsolete content.
In addition, drafts may be deleted under the following circumstances:
- User account is deactivated or disabled for inactivity.
- User chooses to permanently delete their Facebook account.
- User deletes an individual draft post from their drafts page.
To ensure your draft posts are not unexpectedly deleted by Facebook, it’s a good idea to review old drafts occasionally and publish or refresh any you still want to keep as unpublished drafts.
Recovering Deleted Drafts
If one of your drafts does disappear or get inadvertently deleted from Facebook, is it possible to recover it? Unfortunately, once Facebook removes a draft post from their servers, there is no way to retrieve it.
Deleted drafts cannot be restored through Facebook. The platform does not have a version history or “recycle bin” feature for drafts that are erased. This underscores the importance of publishing your drafts or at least downloading copies before they are purged from Facebook’s systems.
Some third-party social media management platforms that integrate with Facebook do allow you to export and back up your draft posts externally. You can then re-import any lost drafts back into these platforms to re-create them if needed.
Conclusion
To summarize, here are the key points about what happens to pending Facebook posts saved as drafts:
- Drafts are stored in separate Facebook databases accessible only to each user.
- The specific databases Facebook uses for drafts are proprietary information.
- Draft posts are most likely encrypted by Facebook for privacy and security.
- Old, inactive drafts are eventually deleted after an unpublicized period of time.
- Once deleted by Facebook, drafts cannot be recovered or restored.
Facebook’s draft feature enables you to be more purposeful and strategic with posting. But be sure to review old drafts periodically before they are purged from Facebook’s systems with no way to retrieve them. Following these best practices will allow you to reap the benefits of drafts without losing your unpublished content.
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