How to Get a Copy of All Your Friends Names Off of Facebook
By Melly Parker
Keeping track of friends on Facebook may seem a bit overwhelming, since you can have more than 5,000 friends added to a single Timeline. To keep a current list, you may need to repeat the process you choose from time to time, since contacts may leave Facebook or unfriend you without Facebook sending you a notification. After you've created a file that includes the names of your friends, save it on your computer with the date so that you can determine when those people were active as friends on Facebook.
Saving Screenshots
Open your friends list on Facebook and position the screen so that the first set of friends is shown in the window. Press and hold "Windows Key + PrtScn" to take a screenshot. It will automatically be saved in your "Pictures" folder. When you're done, scroll down to the next set of friends and take another screenshot. Repeat the process until you have a screenshot with each of your friends saved on your computer.
Download Facebook Data
On Facebook, you can download a copy of your Facebook data, which includes a list of your friends. Click on the gear icon and then click "Account Settings." Under "General," click to download a copy of your account data and follow the steps to receive the files. They'll be sent to your email account when the process is complete. You can find a list of your friends in the "Downloaded Info" file you receive.
Facebook Friend Exporter
Facebook Friend Exporter, an app available on Facebook, can also help you create a list of your friends that you can then copy and paste into a word document. Open the app to start the process and then grant it permission to access your Timeline and friends list. Click "Download a Basic Textual List of Your Friends" and a list with the text of your friend's names will appear in a new browser window. While Facebook Friend Exporter is the only app that can download a list of friends from Facebook at the time of publication, new developers add apps to Facebook regularly and another may be added that can do the same procedure.
Friends to Gmail
A website outside of Facebook called Friends to Gmail will create a copy of your Facebook friends' data as a text file that you can save as a CSV spreadsheet; it will show a list of your friends' names. Open Facebook to Gmail and then connect your Facebook account to the site. Click "Load Friends" to display a text box that contains information about each of your Facebook friends. Open a blank text document and paste in the information. Save it as "Facebook friends.csv" or something similar. When you open it in the future, open it as a spreadsheet file and you will have an alphabetical list of your friends' names and other information about each of them. Other sites may be available to download Facebook information as a CSV or text document in the future, too.
References
Writer Bio
Melly Parker has been writing since 2007, focusing on health, business, technology and home improvement. She has also worked as a teacher and a bioassay laboratory technician. Parker now serves as a marketing specialist at one of the largest mobile app developers in the world. She holds a Master of Science in English.