What you need to know about the Google+ closure
Google announced in 2018 that their failed social network, Google+, was going to close down, citing low usage. That planned shutdown is scheduled for early April 2019.
There are two things that users need to be aware of –
1. Despite claims to the contrary, this doesn’t affect other Google owned services, including your Google account, Gmail account, Google Doc accounts, Google Drive storage account or YouTube account. These are not affected.
2. Any information you’ve uploaded to your Google+ account needs to be backed up if you don’t have a local copy or haven’t done so already.
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Launched in 2011, Google+ was an attempt by the search engine giant to compete with Facebook and Twitter on the social networking front. However, despite promising coverage, Google+ failed to lure users away from already established social network websites. In 2018, over 7 years later, Google finally announced that Google+ would close its doors.
That closure is expected to happen in the first few days of April 2019. In an email sent on February 2019, Google reminded users of the impending closure. Despite only Google+ being closed, many users assumed that this would have an impact on their other Google owned accounts, such as their free web-based email service Gmail. However these worries are unfounded, since other Google services will operate as normal. It is only Google+ that will be closing.
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It is also important to note that when the social network does close, any information you’ve uploaded to it will be deleted. If you haven’t saved a local copy of, for example photos and videos, it’s important you save them before April 2019. You can learn how to download all of your Google+ data through this help page on Google’s website.
In Google’s email to its users, they write –
On April 2nd, your Google+ account and any Google+ pages you created will be shut down and we will begin deleting content from consumer Google+ accounts. Photos and videos from Google+ in your Album Archive and your Google+ pages will also be deleted.
So don’t get caught out and make sure any information you want to keep is backed up by April. You can use that above link to also learn about retaining your Google+ data such as posts, likes, communities and circles.
It’s also noteworthy that Google+ sign-in buttons will stop working, so if you’re a website or app developer, remember that. However Google have stated in their email that these buttons may switch to a Google sign-in button, with presumably no need to alter code.
If you see people online fretting about their Gmail account or YouTube accounts getting closed, point them to the way of this article.
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