Facebook has launched a new tool which allows you to easily transfer your photos and videos to another service, although it’s only available to folks in Ireland initially – although a wider rollout will happen soon enough.

This is a feature a lot of people will appreciate, allowing users to conveniently transfer all their Facebook photos and video clips to a third-party service, and the first choice available is to shift media across to Google Photos, with more options to follow.

Privacy and security are key considerations, the social media giant notes, so the data transfer process will involve encryption, and users are asked for a password before a transfer can take place.

Facebook says that this photo transfer tool is rolling out from today, although it’s still being tested, and will be further honed based on feedback from users. As mentioned, the utility is currently only available to those in Ireland, with wider (worldwide) availability planned for the first half of 2020.

You can find the new tool under Facebook settings within Your Facebook Information.

Data portability

Facebook notes that this is all part of a drive for data portability, and that the transfer tool is based on code developed through the company’s participation in the open source Data Transfer Project (launched by Google back in 2018, with partners including Facebook and Twitter, as well as Microsoft and Apple).

The social media firm observed: “At Facebook, we believe that if you share data with one service, you should be able to move it to another. That’s the principle of data portability, which gives people control and choice while also encouraging innovation.”