How to Use Facebook From Your Email

Post status updates and upload photos without the Facebook app

Couple using laptop, smiling and woman pointing

skynesher / Getty Images

By
Heinz Tschabitscher
Heinz Tschabitscher
Writer
A former freelance contributor who has reviewed hundreds of email programs and services since 1997.
our editorial process
Heinz Tschabitscher
Updated July 24, 2019

Facebook's post-by-email functionality, which was released in 2010 and which is described below, has been discontinued. This article has been retained for archival purposes.

You can use Facebook from the desktop website, mobile website, and mobile app.

How Did Posting on Facebook From Email Used to Work?

You could use your email account to post updates on Facebook as well as to upload photos and videos to your Facebook account. Using Facebook over email was an alternative if you didn't have access to the app or website.

One circumstance in which you might have changed your Facebook status over email or sent photos from your email to Facebook is when you were offline, like away from Wi-Fi or in an out-of-service area. Anything you sent to Facebook through your email would be posted online when you received a strong enough signal.

Perhaps you just wanted to avoid logging in to Facebook to update your status or share some photos you just took. All you had to do was send an email to your personal @facebook.com account.

Remember that the steps to follow no longer work.

Updating Your Facebook Status Over Email

When this feature was supported, you could update your Facebook status from an email message by writing your status as the Subject.

  1. Start a new email to your secret Facebook status email address.
  2. Type the desired status update in the email Subject line.
    1. You can leave the message body blank, or not; it doesn't really matter because Facebook will ignore anything in the body of the message.
    2. If you leave the Subject line blank (and do not attach a photo or video; see below), your update will be ignored altogether.
    3. Your default privacy settings will be applied to updates sent via email.
  3. Send the email.

Post Images to Facebook Over Email

Uploading videos and photos to Facebook from your email account was just as easy as updating your status, but instead of describing a status update, you'd attach the files to the email like you would any other file attachment.

  1. Start a new email to your secret Facebook upload email address.
  2. Optionally, enter a caption for your photos or videos in the Subject line.
    1. You can leave the Subject line blank if you want, and the images and videos will still post.
  3. Attach all images or videos you want to upload to Facebook.
    1. The caption from the Subject line will be used for each image or video you upload.
    2. Files other than images or videos will be ignored by Facebook.
    3. All photos and videos you upload by email use your default Facebook privacy settings.
  4. Send the email.