Album Downloader for Facebook
Album Downloader is a desktop Facebook application that allows you to bulk download photos from the albums of your
friends on Facebook and save them locally on your hard drive.
The offical Facebook Application page for this app is here.
Install the latest version (v1.2.1) from here.
Download/Install
Install the latest version (v1.2.1) from here.
Please note that the newer versions of this application use the ClickOnce installation technology. If you're clueless as to what this means, then all you need to know is that the next time you run the app, it will automatically update itself to the latest version. (It will ask for your approval to update the app though).
Prerequisites
Here's what you need in order to use this application.
- Windows XP or Vista
- Microsoft .NET 2.0 runtime - (you can download and install it from here)
- And of course, a Facebook account.
Version History
Version 1.2 - Released on Oct 20, 2008
- Added a feature to download all tagged pics of the current user.
- The picture files will be saved to a directory called "(All tagged pics of me)".
- NOTE: The the naming convetion for the files is slightly different from that used for the pictures downloaded from a specific user's album. This was done to prevent duplicates when downloading newer pictures.
Version 1.1 - Released on Oct 10, 2008
- Fixed a bug which was causing the app to crash after the user logged in. The exception was due to a change in the political view field of user profiles.
Version 1.0 - Released on Sept 1, 2008
- Added app autoupdate feature (using the ClickOnce technology).
- Allow users to download their own albums. The logged in user will appear in the same list as their friends in alphabetical order.
- Updated the version number to 1.0.
Version 0.1.9 - Released on May 27, 2008
- Added an option to overwrite existing albums (disabled by default)
- Fixed a bug where long photo captions caused the app to crash.
- Fixed a bug where canceling out from the Facebook login page caused an exception.
Version 0.1.7 - Release on April 4, 2008
- Fixed some internal issues.
- Added file logging for exceptions.
Version 0.1.6 - Released on March 31, 2008
- Added a numric prefix to the files downloaded to keep them sorted in the same order as they are in the Facebook Albums.
Version 0.1.1 - Released on Feb 1, 2008
- Initial Alpha release.
Help - FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
- Can I use the application on a Mac?
In short, no. The application was developed using the Microsoft .NET platform which is currently only supported on Windows PC's. That said, if there is enough demand for it, I will port the app over so it can be run on a Mac. - Why does it take so long to load the application?
To be truly honest, I'm not 100% sure why this happens. Some preliminary investigation seem to suggest that the Facebook Toolkit seems to be the culprit, but until I confirm that I don't want to say its all their fault. Given that I've tested the app on various PC's, with different internet connections, and seen the performance vary suggests that it also may have something to do with the latency in the connection to the Facebook servers. - Why do I get an exception which says, "Application quota/limit exceeded"?
Well, Facebook only allows applications to make a certain number of API calls within a given day. Sometimes, if you use the app heavily, or try to download lots of albums, you may encounter this exception. If this happens, I suggest you try the application after 24 hours. If you still see the issue, feel free to contact support. - Why can't I save the pictures to a long(er) path?
The .NET platform only supports paths with a max of 248 chars (read this for full technical details). Anything longer than this cause the application .NET to throw the System.IO.PathTooLongException. Since this is a platform issue, there isn't a simple way to address this issue. The one simple way to work around this it to just use a short path to save your pictures to. - Why do I keep getting the following error message? "The app hit an exception. Aborting the current operation"
This message is usually displayed when the app hits any exception. Sometimes this may just happen cause of a network glitch (like you may have momentarily lost your WiFi connection), or it could be cause of something else. (Yeah I know how vague is that). Well, if you continue to get this error here are a few possibilities:- The path you're using to save your pic files to, is too long (see issue #4 mentioned above).
- You've found a new bug. Please contact me so I can debug/fix the issue.
- Do you have a Q? Ask me and I may post it here.
Disclaimer
The software is provided "AS IS" without any warranty, either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. The author will not be liable for any special, incidental, consequential or indirect damages due to loss of data or any other reason.