I wrote the FBI over 3 years ago with my FOIA, concerning a book about historical events in the US, from decades ago; the FBI was involved to an extent, and I assumed they might have useful material. (Additionally, as I'm not from the US, I can't, unfortunately, go around libraries to access microfiche files, etc., as part of the research, and an institution with such a vast catalogue of data available seemed worth a try).
In 2015, I received a letter from the FBI. It turned out that they did indeed have files that would be extremely useful for the book: in fact, there were many hundreds of pages and even multimedia that would be of great help.
I confirmed that I was very much interested in the files, and confirmed that the cost of duplicating would be fine. I sent the reply via a letter, not an e-mail - and, well, I've been waiting ever since. Last year, I e-mailed the FBI, asking if there was any way to know what the request's status was, but all I could find out was the automatic request status check on the fbi.gov site.
And since then, for almost 2 years now, my request's status has been: "The FBI's FOIPA Program has identified potential responsive information to your request(s) and awaits assignment to a Government Information Specialist (GIS) for further processing."
Obviously I know that there are many pages to copy in my request. I understand how swamped with FOIA requests they are, and how many are infuriatingly long to process, trivial, etc... but if you've had experience with successful FOIA requests, what did you do? Did you keep getting in touch, reminding of your existence, so to say - or even pestering them with "I'm still waiting" notes? (Something I'd prefer to avoid doing :)
In a nutshell, if you received your material, how long did you have to wait... and did you accelerate your request somehow?
Should I contact them again, via e-mail, via letters? Via phone or fax, perhaps? Or should I just keep checking the status page, wait patiently, and hope?
(I have begun writing the book since then, but the prospect of having so much useful material to improve it makes me jump in excitement... and the fact that I don't have any of it makes me sigh in exasperation.)
When I did a FOIA request for my doctoral dissertation, the first contact I received was an e-mail 18 months after my initial submission asking if I was still interested in the materials. I then received a letter about 6 months after that saying that I could receive copies of the first group of files and asking for payment. All told, a little over 3 years passed from my request to my receipt of the last documents.
This was with NARA rather than the FBI, however. Also, rather than asking about a topic, my request was for specific documents (which I provided the filing information for). I didn't contact them during the process. I just occasionally checked their request status page.
It depends on the kinds of files and whether they're looking at them "freshly" or not (e.g., have they already been marked as declassified or do they need entirely new review; the latter is slow, the former is not). Some kinds of files are relatively quick for the FBI, some are not. Just looking at a few queries I've done with them, for declassifying/reviewing files that have not been looked at, the range of time has been between 1 and 3 years or so. Which is to say — you're still within the range of how long these things take. It also depends at times on whether the file contains information that other agencies have to look at (e.g., CIA, State, DOE, Army, USAF, whatever).
You can definitely try to contact them again but they will probably tell you the same thing as the website says, which is to say, you're in the queue, someday it'll get looked at or worked on. It can't hurt to see if a human being can tell you anything but the odds are they can't.
For what it is worth, FBI is reasonably fast as far as FOIA responding agencies go! FOIA research requires zen-like patience. NARA is much much much much worse.
@FBIRecordsVault on twitter - send tweet them as well. Also contact judicial watch if they help they'll have the resources to speed up the process.
@judicialwatch - Twitter
For me it took about 3 months from submission to receipt of material, if I recall correctly. I submitted it online, and then I received no correspondence until one day an envelope showed up with a DVD containing the requested material and a paper telling me no payment was required.