Facebook Ultimatum Prompts Users to Download Moments App

— -- Facebook is giving its users an ultimatum:

Download the Moments photo sharing app before July 7 or risk losing all of the photos that have been synced to Facebook from your phone.

"Photos you privately synced from your phone to Facebook will be deleted soon. Earlier this year, they were moved to Moments, a new app from Facebook. The Moments app lets you organize and privately share photos from your phone, and download or delete photos you've synced to Facebook," a notification from Facebook said. "If you want to keep these photos, download and log into Moments before July 7."

Launched last June, Facebook's Moments app groups the photos on a user's phone based on when they were taken and utilizes facial recognition technology to determine which friends are in them. The idea is to make it easier to privately share and receive relevant photos with friends.

Facebook's push to get users to download Moments appears to be working. As of this morning, Moments was the No. 1 free app in the App Store and No. 2 in Google Play, second only to Facebook's standalone Messenger app.

Users who don't want to download Moments will need to save their synced photos to a computer before July 7, according to the Facebook notification.