Migrating from Facebook to Google+—The Complete Idiot’s Quick Guide

Migrating from Facebook to Google+

In This Quick Guide:: Moving Your Friends List; Moving Your Photos and Videos

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Many users are switching from Facebook to Google+ to take advantage of Google+’s cleaner, better organized way of doing things. The problem with moving from Facebook to Google+ is dealing with everything you’ve built up on the older social network over the years. Fortunately, there are ways to move your Facebook friends list and all the photos and videos you’ve uploaded to your new Google+ account.

Moving Your Friends List

The first thing you want to migrate is your Facebook friends list—all the contacts you’ve created on the Facebook network. The good news is, you can move your friends from Facebook to Google+, so you don’t have to re-enter them manually. The bad news is, it’s not an easy procedure—in fact, it’s a bit of a workaround for something that ought to be an lot simpler.

To move your friends list from Facebook to Google+, you have to first move them to an intermediary service—in this instance, Yahoo! Mail works just fine. So you move your contacts from Facebook to Yahoo! Mail, and then export them from Yahoo! Mail to Google+.

This means, of course, that to perform this procedure you must have a Facebook account, a Google+ account, and a Yahoo! Mail account. You can now follow these steps:

Sign into your Yahoo! Mail account (mail.yahoo.com) and click the Contacts tab.
From the Contacts tab, click the Import Contacts button.
When the Import Contacts page appears, click the Facebook icon.

Importing Facebook contacts into Yahoo! Mail.

When the Share with Yahoo! dialog box appears, click the Okay button.
Yahoo! now imports your Facebook friends as new email contacts and notifies you when done.
Sign into Google+ (plus.google.com) and click the Circles button at the top of the page.
When the Circles page appears, click the Find People tab.
In the Find Friends section, click the Yahoo! link.

Getting ready to import contacts from Yahoo! Mail.

When the Yahoo! window opens, make sure the correct Yahoo! email account is selected, then click the Agree button.

Connecting your Google+ account to your Yahoo! account.

Google+ now imports your Yahoo! contacts (which include your Facebook contacts) and displays them on your Circles page.

Since a Google+ friend isn’t really friend until he’s added to a circle, you now need to add your Facebook friends to your circles; to do so, just drag a contact onto the desired circle. Any person you add to a circle will receive an email invitation to join Google+, if they’re not already a member. When that person responds in the affirmative, he or she will officially be added to your circles.

Moving Your Photos and Videos

If you’re an active Facebooker, chances are you’ve uploaded and shared dozens if not hundreds of photos and videos. You don’t want to lose these valuable files, nor do you really want to upload them again, one at a time, to Google+. The solution is to export all your media files from Facebook, and then import them into Google+.

Here’s how to do it:

Log into your Facebook account (www.facebook.com), click the Account button in the navigation bar, and select Account Settings.
When Facebook’s Account Settings page appears, select the General tab and click the Download a Copy of Your Facebook Data link.

Getting ready to download your media files from Facebook.

When the Download Your Information page appears, click the Start My Archive button.
When the Request My Download dialog box appears, click the Start My Archive button.
Facebook now assembles all the data and photos, and sends you an email when the file is ready. Click the link in the email message.
You’re now taken to a different Download Your Information page on the Facebook site. Enter your password, as requested, then click the Continue button.
When the next page appears, click the Download Archive button.
When prompted, save this file to the desired location on your computer’s hard drive. The file should be in compressed (zip) format.
Extract (unzip) the file you downloaded. The extracted data is organized into multiple folders, labeled HTML, Photos, and Videos. We’ll be working with the Photos and Videos file.
Log onto Google+ (plus.google.com) and click the Photos button.
When the Photos page appears, click the Upload New Photos button.

Getting ready to upload your Facebook photos into Google+.

When the Upload and Share Photos pane appears, click the Select Photos from Your Computer button.
When the Open dialog box appears, navigate to and select the photos in your Photos folder from Facebook, then click the Open button.
When the Upload and Share Photos pane appears again, click the Create Album button to create a new photo album for your Facebook photos.
When all your photos are uploaded, you can then start uploading your videos. Click the Profile button at the top of any Google+ page.
When your Profile page appears, select the Videos tab.
From the Videos tab, click the Upload New Videos button.
When the Upload and Share Videos pane appears, click the Select Videos from Your Computer button.
When the Open dialog box appears, navigate to and select the videos in your Videos folder from Facebook, then click the Open button.
When the Upload and Share Videos pane reappears, click the Create Album button to create a new album for your Facebook videos.

Okay, that’s a lot of steps, but it’s also a lot easier than re-uploading each and every photo and video individually.

You’ll notice that you can’t move your profile information or previous status updates—but why would you want to move those old posts, anyway?

Now that you know how to get from Facebook to Google+ you can start setting up your circles and enjoying the perks of this new social media. Have fun!

by Michael Miller, author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Google+