Did you know that Facebook was creating ASCII versions of your pictures?

Did you know that Facebook was creating ASCII versions of your pictures?


Monday, February 1, 2016

We recently discovered that Facebook was keeping an ASCII version of your public photos. What exactly is an ASCII photo? It's nothing more than some text that, using the various shapes of letters, numbers and symbols, give you the impression that you're seeing a picture. We don't know why Facebook is doing that, but we find it pretty cool! Here's what you need to do to view your ASCII pictures.

1. Make sure your photo is public

For it to work, you need to make sure your photo can be viewed by everybody. To make a photo public, click on the 2 silhouets beside your photo and select 'Public'. If you see a planet instead of 2 silhouets, it means your photo was already public.

2. Find your photo's URL

To view the ASCII version of your photo, you must first know the original photo's URL. To find the URL, just right-click on the photo you would like to view and select 'Copy image URL'.

3. View photo in a browser

Once the 2 previous steps completed, you need to open a new tab in your briwser and PASTE the URL (CTRL+V) (don't forget to press ENTER after pasting). You'll see the picture appear.

4. Add .html at the end of the URL

At the end of your URL, after the .jpg extension, just add '.html'. In the following example, the end of the URL goes from '8518865180008545644_o.jpg' to '8518865180008545644_o.jpg.html'. Press ENTER and you'll see the ASCII version appear! Cool right?