How To Download & Save Your Google+ Content Before The April Shut Down

The last 3 or 4 years have not been great for alternative social media platforms with Facebook/Instagram dominating the space while Twitter and Reddit seem to be picking up those users who don't want to buy into what the Facebook group is selling. Apart from these 4 sites nothing really competes on a mass market scale and we've seen them suffer for it. 

StumbleUpon and Klout have called it quits and Google+ is will be shut down in 2019. The initial shutdown was scheduled for August but it looks like Google has moved up the date to April instead.

For more details on the shutdown check out Google's Blog

Why has Google expedited the demise of G+?

It was announced back in October that Google+ would be shut down in August 2019 due to a data breach affecting 500,000 users. A significantly larger data breach was discovered this past November, impacting 52.5 million users. As a result, Google is expediting the process of sunsetting Google+ in April 2019. In addition, all Google+ APIs will be shut down within the next 90 days.

For those website owners and those who made use of the G+ quick login/account creation system having concerns that their data may have fallen into the wrong hands, Google says there is no evidence of misuse.

Now that we have a solid date 02 April as Google has indicated, that leaves you with only 3 months to say goodbye and perhaps salvage some or all of the data from your public profile.

Should you wish to keep your profile data as a memento, Google has now released instructions on how to save and store your precious Google+ profile.

Download your Google+ data

You can export and download your Google+ data, including your Google+ circles, Communities, Streams, and +1’s. Your Google+ archive includes your photos and videos from Google+.

1. Go to the Download your data page. You might have to sign in. Your available Google+ data will be preselected.
2. Click Next.
3. Choose a file type.
4. Choose how you want your data delivered.
5. Click Create archive.

Note: If you want to download Google+ Pages content, sign in as the Google+ Page.

Download specific Google+ data

Instead of downloading all of your data, you can download specific Google+ data, like your photos, posts, communities, or events. Important: If you want to download your photos and videos from Google+, make sure to select Photos under "Google+ Stream."

1. Go to the Download your data page. You might have to sign in.
2. Next to the type of content you want to download, like Google+ Stream, click the Down arrow Down Arrow.
3. Click Select specific data.
4. Select the specific data you want to download.
5. Click OK. Click Next.
6. Choose a file type.
7. Choose how you want your data delivered.
8. Click Create archive.

Note: If you want to download Google+ Pages content, sign in as the Google+ Page.

Deleting your Google+ Profile

Downloading your Google+ data does not delete your Google+ profile and should you wish to get rid of your profile afterwards, You can delete your Google+ profile any time by going to http://plus.google.com/downgrade, signing in and following the instructions on that page. 

If you see an upgrade page, you don't have a Google+ profile. Deleting your Google+ profile will not affect certain other Google products, like Search, Gmail, and your Google Account. 

Download Google+ data for deleted Google+ accounts

If you previously deleted your Google+ account or your Google+ page, Google would have informed you that your photos and videos from Google+ would continue to appear in your Album Archive and your Google+ Events content would not be deleted.

Google will begin deleting this content on April 2, 2019.

If you want to keep this content, download it using the above instructions before April 2019.

Note: Photos and videos backed up in Google Photos will not be deleted.

Google+ Login API

All Google+ APIs will be shut down on March 7, 2019, which includes Google+ Sign-in. Developers should migrate to the more comprehensive Google Sign-in authentication system. This will be a progressive shutdown, with intermittent failures starting as early as January 28, 2019. For more information, see our Google+ API shutdown page.

Turning a negative of Google+

Sites will come and go and this will by no means be the last site shut down you'll go through. I'm sure there will be more than a few million people that will miss using G+ and they will have to make peace with it. Hopefully achieving their profiles will bring them some closure and who knows? Perhaps an open source fan run site could take its place, only time will tell. 

Tell us your G+ story

Did you use G+ to the bitter end? What did you like about it? Is it the right time to say goodbye? WIll you be archiving your profile? Let us know in the comments below and we will cry along with you.

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Tags: Google+ , Social Media