Move a Facebook group

This page is for the owners and admins of a community that is leaving a Facebook group for Zen Social. It also has a part for the members, who can bring their own posts from the group. You do not need to be a developer.

A Facebook group holds two kinds of history. The material that belongs to the group as a whole, such as the posts an admin shares, can be moved over by you with an AI assistant. The posts your members wrote are theirs, and Facebook gives each of them a download of their own. This page shows how both parts fit together.

What moves, and how

The admin's shared material moves through the Community API, with an AI assistant that works for you. It sets up the circles and moves posts in with their original dates. Read Moving your community to Zen Social for the whole picture, and give your assistant Start here first.
Each member's own posts move through Bring your Facebook posts, a tool members use themselves, from the circle or from their profile. A member downloads their own data from Facebook and chooses which of their posts to bring in. They stay the author, so nothing has to be matched afterwards.
Comments and events come later. A post that has an event is left out for now.

You can do the two parts in either order, and members can come at any time. Running the tool again never makes duplicates.

Mark the group you are replacing

Do this once for each circle that takes the place of a Facebook group. It is what lets Zen Social offer the right circle to the members who wrote in that group.

Open the circle and go to its settings. You need to be an owner or admin of the circle.
Find the section Facebook group this circle replaces.
Choose Choose from your Facebook export, and pick the zip file you downloaded from Facebook, or all its parts. Follow the steps under What each member does to get one: the admin does it the same way as everyone else.
Pick the name of the group from the list. The names come from your own download, so the spelling is exactly the same as on Facebook. The file is read in your browser and is never uploaded. Only the name you pick is saved.
Save the settings.

You can also type the name yourself in the field Group name, up to 200 characters, and Clear takes it away again. Several circles may name the same group.

Once this is done, a member who joined the circle sees a quiet card at the top, Bring your posts from the name of the group. They can hide it with Not now. The same tool is always on their profile too: Profile → Preferences → Bring your Facebook posts, where they choose the circle under Which circle?. The circles that name a Facebook group come first there, with the group's name.

Invite your members

Only you can do this: people sign up in the app, and nobody can be let in for them. Invite them the way you usually do, and tell them what is waiting:

the circle now replaces the Facebook group;
if they wrote in the group, they can bring their own posts here;
it is their choice, and nobody is notified when they do it.

You can send the link to this page with your invitation. It is written so that a member can follow it on their own.

What each member does

You decide whether to bring your posts. If you do, it takes a few minutes of work and then some waiting while Facebook prepares the download.

Get your download from Facebook

The menus on Facebook change from time to time, and their names may be a little different on your phone. These are the steps at the time of writing.

On Facebook, open Accounts Center, then Your information and permissions, then Export your information.
Choose Create export, and choose your profile.
Choose Export to device.
Under Customise information, choose only Groups. Your download then holds only what you wrote in groups.
Choose a Date range. Pick the time you want to bring over: a shorter range gives a smaller file.
Choose the format JSON. The default is HTML, and that does not work.
Choose the media quality Medium. It is good enough for photos in a feed, and the file is much smaller than with High.
Choose Start export.

Facebook sends you an email when the file is ready. Download it. It may come as one zip file or as several parts. Do not unzip anything.

Bring your posts in

Open the circle and choose Bring your posts on the card at the top. If the card is not there, go to Profile → Preferences, choose Bring your Facebook posts, and pick the circle under Which circle?.
Choose the zip file you downloaded. If Facebook gave you several parts, choose all of them at once.
Zen Social shows the groups it found in your download, with the number of posts in each. Choose your group from the list. It is already chosen for you when the circle's saved group name is the same as the group in your download. Check that it is the right circle. If you want your posts to go somewhere else, choose Import somewhere else and pick another circle where you can post.
Choose which posts: My latest (a number of posts), Since (a date), or All of them.
You see a preview of your posts, 50 at a time (Show more shows the next), with each post's date, its first words and its pictures. Untick any post you want to leave behind; the posts not shown yet come too. Posts that Facebook could not place in a group are folded into one line at the end, and are left out unless you tick them: choose Show them to search them by their words and tick the ones that belong here (Tick all ticks every post that matches the search). A post whose photos are in a part of the export you did not choose is listed, but you cannot tick it, and it has the note "Some photos are in another part of your export. Choose all the parts." Choose all the parts and it can come.
Choose Import. It stays at the bottom of the screen while you scroll. A bar shows how far it has come.

Keep the page open while it works. If you close it, or the connection drops, open the tool and run it again: it carries on where it stopped.

What stays on your device

Your whole download is read on your own phone or computer. Facebook puts a lot more in it than your group posts, such as logins, friends and ads, and none of that leaves your device. Only the posts you chose, with their pictures, are sent to Zen Social. The download itself is never uploaded.

Pictures have their location and camera details taken off before they are stored.

Good to know

You stay the author. The posts are yours and show your name, and you can edit or delete them like any other post of yours.
The posts keep their dates. They sit at their old date in the circle and do not show up as new.
Nobody is notified. Not the circle, and not when a video is ready to play.
Running it again never makes duplicates. You can use a bigger date range later, or the same file again, and only posts that are not here yet are brought in.
Posts you deleted stay deleted. If you brought a post in and then deleted it, it is skipped next time, and the results say, for example, "1 post you had deleted was skipped". After such a run a tick Bring back posts I deleted appears next to the Import button. Tick it and choose Import again to get those posts back.
Posts someone else removed never come back. If a moderator or admin removed a post, or it was turned into an event, it is not brought in again, not even with the tick. The results then say, for example, "1 was removed by someone else and won't come back".
One Facebook post can become several posts. A Zen Social post carries photos or a video, never both. A Facebook post with both arrives as two posts that share the text and the date. A post with more than 10 photos is spread over several posts. So the number of posts brought in can be higher than the number you ticked.
Some pictures cannot come. Photos over 10 MB are made smaller on your device before they are sent. Photos that are not JPEG, PNG or AVIF are left behind, and the rest of the post still comes. The preview says so on the post, for example "1 photo can't come (wrong type)." A post with nothing else in it is listed, but you cannot tick it. A photo that cannot be read at all, or a large photo your device cannot make small enough, stops its post: the preview says so, and the results list that post under Could not come, with the reason. Run the import again on another device, and the post comes once.
Long videos stay behind. A video over 15 minutes or over 500 MB cannot come. The rest of the post still does. A post that is only such a video is skipped, and you are told.
Posts with an event come later. They are left out for now, and you are told how many.
Comments come later too.
It needs a recent browser. Reading the export needs a browser from 2023 or later: Safari 16.4 or later, or a recent Chrome, Firefox or Edge. If yours is older, the page says so.

Ramp down the old Facebook group

Moving takes time. Keep the old group open while members find their way to the new circle, and let it go quiet gradually rather than closing it overnight.

Point to the new place. Post in the group where you have moved, with a link to the circle. As an admin you can feature the post (Facebook also calls it an announcement), so it stays at the top of the group.
Move the conversation. Post news and plans in the circle first. In the Facebook group, answer with a link to the circle instead of carrying on the discussion there.
Remind people, and give them time. Mention the move again over the following weeks, so that members who are rarely on Facebook also hear about it. Tell them they can bring their own posts.
Let it go quiet. When most members have moved, pause the group: open it, choose the options below the cover photo, then pause. Nobody can post, comment or react while it is paused, but members can still read it, and still download their own posts. Facebook lets you write a short message at the top when you pause: use it to point to the circle. You can resume the group at any time.

Do not delete the group. When a group is deleted, its posts go with it, so members who come late can no longer bring theirs. Deleting cannot be undone. If you do it at all, do it last, and ask your members first.