Yesterday a reader asked if it was possible to save Facebook Messages. The good news is that your Facebook messages never go away, even if you switch phones or computers. The only exception is when the person you’re messaging with deletes their part of the conversation. The bad news is that it can be kind of a pain to scroll through all of them if there’s one particular thing you’re looking for.
But you can search them. Here’s how to do it on a browser. (If you need instructions for the phone app, click here.) To start, open Facebook in a browser and click the chat icon at the top of the page.
Scroll down to the bottom and select See All in Messenger.
This page will open up.
On the right, you’ll find a search box where you can search for the names of people you’ve had conversations to pull up your previous conversations.
Type in a name and click the result and your conversations with that person will appear in the center pane.
You can then use the scrollbar to find the conversation you want.
Once you’ve selected a contact, you can also search for specific words in conversations you’ve shared. Just click on Search in Conversation.
A search box will appear in the middle pane. Type in the words you’re looking for and click Search.
You’ll see the number of results at the top. Scroll through them by clicking the arrow beneath the number. The search term will also be highlighted in the results.
If you want to save messages outside of Facebook, you can screenshot them or click and drag on the text and right-click to copy. Then paste the text in a document.
