How to Upload Photos from Mobile Phone to Facebook

You captured a bunch of photos using the camera of your mobile phone - now how do you upload these pictures directly to Facebook without having to transfer them to a desktop computer?

There are basically three ways by which you can send photos from a mobile phone to the Facebook website - MMS, Mobile Phone Apps and Email. Let’s look at each of these options one by one.

Facebook Apps for Mobile

If you have a smartphone like the iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile or Nokia (with Ovi Store), you can visit m.facebook.com using the internet browser of your mobile phone and download the Facebook application for your device. These apps will often integrate with the camera function of your phone and provide an option to directly upload pictures to Facebook right after they’ve been taken.

Facebook MMS

Now if you are not carrying a smartphone but still want to move pictures from the phone to Facebook, you can use picture messaging or MMS. Here’s how it works.

Compose a new MMS message on your mobile phone and attach the image file that you want to post to your Facebook stream with the MSS message. Send that MMS to mobile@facebook.com (email, not phone) and Facebook will send you a confirmation code (via text) to associate your mobile phone number with your Facebook profile.

The MMS option looks like a nice technique for upload photos from old phones but the problem is that it may not always work as expected and secondly, sending MMS messages per picture (depending upon your carrier plan) can sometimes turn out to be an expensive proposition.

Facebook Email

Luckily, there’s another option provided your mobile phone can send email. Go to facebook.com/mobile, click on the Activate Facebook Mobile button, and note a special "upload" email address (like mobile@facebook.com) that has been assigned to you by Facebook. Any photograph (or video clip) that is sent to this address via email will instantly get posted to your Facebook page. Make sure the picture is included as an attachment to the email.

Much like Flickr, when you send a photo to this "unique" email address, the subject of your email message will be used as the photo caption.  And these photos will get saved in the "Mobile Uploads" photo album of your Facebook account visible to all your Facebook contacts. You can consider changing the privacy settings of your "Mobile Uploads" folder to change the default viewership of photographs upload from a mobile device.

Another tip - the email address assigned by Facebook can be quite long and complex so you may want to save it to your phone address book beforehand for easy access.