Facebook killing Moments photo organising app

Facebook is giving up on its standalone Moments photo organiser app more than three years after launching it.

The service, which served as a place to store photos from your phone and aimed to make it easier for users to create photo albums, will close down globally on 25 February.

It is not clear why Facebook has decided to pull Moments, though it is likely to be a result of insufficient popularity.

The decision is not uncommon in the company, with underused apps shutting and new ones launching from time to time — just last year, three Facebook-owned apps, including its fitness app Moves, were shut down.

“We’re ending support for the Moments app, which we originally launched as a place for people to save their photos,” said Rushabh Doshi, Facebook’s director of product management. “We know the photos people share are important to them so we will continue offering ways to save memories within the Facebook app.”

According to the app’s Google Play page, Moments had been installed more than 50 million times on Android devices alone.

Private albums

Existing users of Moments are now presented with a warning, which reads: “The Moments app will no longer be available after 25 February. We know your photos and videos are important, so we’ve made ways for you to export and keep them.”

People can choose to export their Moments to private albums on their Facebook profile, or they can download them to their device, the social network said.