Last year in October, search giant Google had announced that it will be closing down its social networking platform, Google Plus (or Google+), for consumers after a security flaw exposed users’ profile data. Shortly after the announcement, Google+ faced another data leak and this made the technology giant quicken the process of shutting down its social networking platform. It was after this leak that the company decided to close down the platform in April 2019. And now, the technology giant has formally announced a new timeline about how and when Google+ will shut down.
Starting February 4, users will no longer be able to create new Google+ profiles, pages, communities and events. Even the comments that are generated by Google+ on external websites will be removed from Blogger on the same date. Comments on other websites will be removed by March 7. All website comments that are made via Google+ will get deleted starting April 2, and on the same day, all of consumer Google+ content will also be deleted.
However, the only exception to this is Google notes, and that is being kept for legal reasons. The Google notes content that will not be deleted includes photos and videos from Google+ in users’ Album Archive and on other Google+ pages. You can create and download an archive of your data before it is deleted if you wish to save it and Google has listed down instructions for the same on its support page. We should mention that if your photos and videos are backed up to Google Photos, they will not be deleted and will stay safe.
It is also worth noticing that if you have used Google+ to sign in to apps, this button will also stop working and you may have to re-login via Facebook or email. Some reports also suggest that it will be replaced by a Google sign-in button. In such cases, you will be signed in with our Google account instead of Google+. But we must add that you would still be able to access other Google services and Google+ shutdown will not affect that in any way.
The search giant has also said that it will take some time to delete all the Google+ data, so there is a possibility that portions of account will be visible for a few months before it’s gone.
Furthermore, G Suite customers will be able to access Google+, but then a new look and some additional features are also expected to surface on the social network for them. Considering that these headlines are just around the corner, you should act now and save your Google+ history while you can.
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