Facebook Group Backup: Download All Posts & Comments (2026)

Facebook has no way to download a group. "Download Your Information" only covers your own activity (the posts and comments you wrote in groups), not what other members posted, and admins get no export of a group's content either. To keep a copy of a group, use the free InsightSocial Chrome extension: open the group, pick Posts or Posts and Comments, sort by New posts and click Scrape, then download the rows to Excel, CSV or JSON, or send them to Google Sheets. A schedule repeats the run every day or week, so the copy stays current. It works on public groups and on private groups you're a member of.

Why back up a Facebook group?

A group can hold years of answers, recommendations and files that exist nowhere else. It can also go away without warning:

• Facebook disables the group. Groups get disabled for reported posts, sometimes by mistake. While an appeal is pending, nobody, admins included, can open it.
• An admin deletes or archives it. Deleting removes everything. Archiving keeps the group readable, but no new posts, and you still have no copy of your own.
• You lose access. You get removed, leave by accident, or your account gets locked. A private group is then closed to you.
• You're moving the community. Admins moving to Discord, Circle, Skool or a forum want the old threads, the frequent questions and who answered them.
• Posts get deleted. Members delete their own posts and admins remove threads, and they don't come back.

If any of those would hurt, the time to make the copy is before it happens: once a group is gone, there is nothing left to download.

What Facebook gives you, and what it doesn't

Facebook's own tools are built around your personal data. A group's content belongs to everyone who posted in it, so there is no button that hands it to one person.

How to back up a group, step by step

1. Install the extension

Add InsightSocial to Chrome and pin its icon. Stay logged in to Facebook in the same browser: the extension uses your own session and never asks for your password.

2. Open the group

Go to the group's main feed. Public groups work for anyone. For a private group you need to be a member, the same as when you read it yourself.

3. Choose what to keep

Open the side panel and pick one:

• Posts: the text of each post with its author, date, reaction, comment and share counts, post link and the links to its photos and videos.
• Posts and Comments: the same, plus each post's comment thread, with replies linked to the comment they answer. It opens every post in turn, so it is slower.

For a backup, Posts and Comments is usually the one you want: in most groups the useful part is in the replies.

4. Sort by New posts

Under the advanced options, choose New posts so the run starts from the newest post and works back in order. That is also the only sort that lets you set a time window (see the next section).

5. Scrape and download

Click Scrape. Rows appear as they are collected, and the run keeps going if you switch tabs. When it finishes, download the file:

• Excel (.xlsx) or CSV to open in a spreadsheet
• JSON to import into another tool or a new community platform
• Google Sheets to keep the copy in your Drive

Store the file somewhere outside Facebook, so it survives whatever happens to the group or your account.

How far back a backup reaches

A run reads the group feed from the newest post down:

• Posts collects up to 250 posts per run.
• Posts and Comments covers 10, 25 or 50 posts per run, with up to 120 comments on each.
• With New posts and Go back at most set to 24 hours, 3 days or 7 days, a Posts run collects everything posted in that window, up to 1,000 posts.

Facebook gives group feeds no date filter, so there is no way to ask for "everything from 2021". For a group with years of history, the newest posts are the ones you can always reach. To find a specific older topic, use the search inside the group and run the extension on the results page: it exports the matching posts, with or without comments.

That is why the best backup is one that starts now and keeps running.

Keep the backup current with a schedule

The extension has a built-in scheduler. Set up the run once and it repeats on its own:

1. Open the group and the side panel, and create a schedule for it.
2. Pick Posts, sort New posts, and set Go back at most.
3. Choose how often: every few hours, daily at a set time, or weekly.

A good default is daily, going back 3 days. Each run overlaps the previous two, so a day you missed is still covered by the next run. Weekly with a 7-day window also works, but a skipped week leaves a gap.

Schedules run in your browser, not in the cloud, so Chrome has to be open. A run up to an hour late still starts when you reopen Chrome; later ones are skipped, which is what the overlap is for.

Each run is saved in your InsightSocial history, where you can open and download it again at any time. Overlapping runs contain some of the same posts. Combine the files and remove duplicates by the post link column, which is the same for a post in every run.

What a backup file contains

Two things to know about media and comments:

• Photos and videos come as links, not files. Facebook's media links stop working after a while, so download any images you need to keep while the links are fresh.
• A comment thread is copied as it was at run time. Comments added afterwards are not in that copy. For threads that keep growing, run Posts and Comments again later.

What it costs

Scraping is free and unlimited, and so are scheduled runs. Downloading is free for 500 rows a month. Pro downloads 10,000 rows a month for $9.99 ($7.99 a month billed yearly). A row you have already downloaded is free to download again, so overlapping backup runs don't charge twice for the same post.

Look after the copy

A group backup is full of other people's words and names. Keep the file private, share it only with people who were in the group, and don't republish members' posts outside it. If you're moving a community, ask members before you carry their posts to a new home. Facebook's Terms and privacy laws such as GDPR still apply to the data in your file; is Facebook scraping legal? covers the details.

FAQ

Can I download a Facebook group I'm not an admin of? Yes. The extension saves what you can see as a member, admin or not. For a private group, you need to be a member.

Does Download Your Information include group posts? Only your own: the posts and comments you wrote in groups, plus your memberships. Posts by other members are not in it.

Can I back up a group that Facebook already disabled or deleted? No. A backup copies what the group shows you, so it has to happen while you can still open it. Back up any group you'd hate to lose now, and keep a schedule running.

Can I save the group's member list? No. The backup holds posts and comments. Every row carries its author's name and profile link, so you can see who took part.

Can I back up every post since the group started? Not in one run. Each run starts from the newest post and reaches back up to 250 posts, or every post from the last 7 days. A schedule keeps everything from today on, and the search inside the group finds older posts on a topic.

Does it work on private groups? Yes, if you're a member. The extension reads what your own logged-in session can see, so private groups you haven't joined stay closed.

Will backing up a group get my account restricted? The extension reads at a reader's pace and never posts, reacts or messages for you. It is still your account under Meta's Terms, so keep runs to the size you need.

Read the full Facebook group scraper guide for every option, or install InsightSocial and back up your first group.