facebook - Upload photos for past date

Question

I am trying to upload few old photos with a past creation date so that they appear properly in timeline. Existing api allows only to pass message and source.

i.e

  POST https://graph.facebook.com/ALBUM_ID/photos?access_token=xyz
  ..multipart.form.data.with.message.and.source..

is the only way I can upload photos.

  POST https://graph.facebook.com/PHOTO_ID?access_token=xyz
  created_time=2010-01-20T09:04Z&updated_time=2010-01-20T09:04Z

doesn't move the photo date either.

I tried creating a post out of the photo upload using the /feed api, but it doesn't allow me to make an existing photo a post. It makes it a post of type link.

What I want to exactly create a photo object and publish following:

  {
    "id": "xx_yy",
    "from": {
       "name": "My Name",
       "id": "myfbid"
    },
    "story": "<My Name> added a new photo.",
    "picture": "<PhotoJPEG>",
    "link": "<FBPhoto_URL>",
    "name": "Photo Name",
    "icon": "https://s-static.ak.facebook.com/rsrc.php/v1/yz/r/StEh3RhPvjk.gif",
    "actions": [
       {
          "name": "Comment",
          "link": "https://www.facebook.com/xxx/posts/yy"
       },
       {
          "name": "Like",
          "link": "https://www.facebook.com/xx/posts/yy"
       }
    ],
    "privacy": {
       "description": "Group",
       "value": "CUSTOM",
       "friends": "SOME_FRIENDS",
       "allow": "<GROUPID>"
    },
    "place": {
       "id": "<placeid>",
       "name": "<PlaceName>"
    },
    "type": "photo",
    "object_id": "12345",
    "created_time": "2010-09-20T13:37:54+0000",
    "updated_time": "2010-09-20T13:37:54+0000",
    "comments": {
       "count": 0
    }
  }

Answer 1

I'm an Engineer at FB, but not on the Platform team so I'm not 100% up to date on this. There is an undocumented field 'backdated_time' available on the photo uploader in the Graph API. I assume it's supernew and will be being doc'd over the next few weeks, but feel free to try it in the interim (and report back here!).

It takes an ISO-8601 timestamp by the looks of it.

The docs team have been chased to figure out what's going on.

Also, DMCS isn't quite right. FB Engineers (particularly those in our Developer Support team) are encouraged to hang out here to help with questions, and each week on our developer blog we post how many questions were asked and how many were answered. So there is a commitment to getting questions on SO answered - see https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/625/ as an example.

However, there's a difference between support of existing features and bugs/requests for new features. If you have a bug or feature request, add it to http://developers.facebook.com/bugs.

Thanks!