An official date has been set for the shut down of Google+, which will now occur on April 2nd.
Users have slightly over two months to retrieve their Google+ data before it’s gone forever.
“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.”
Deleted data includes photos and videos in personal albums as well as Google+ pages. Photos and videos backed up in Google Photos will not be deleted.
For complete information on how to export your Google+ data, see my article here.
Google notes that the process of deleting content will take a few months, during which time content may remain online.
“… users may still see parts of their Google+ account via activity log and some consumer Google+ content may remain visible to G Suite users until consumer Google+ is deleted.”
It was first announced back in October 2018 that Google+ would be shutting down as a result of a data breach and low consumer adoption.
The original plan was for Google+ to shut down by August 2019, however, that date was moved up to April following a second data breach.
Google did not announce an exact date for the shut down until today.
Another date to keep in mind is February 4th, which is when users will no longer be able to create new Google+ profiles, pages, communities or events.
One more date to be aware of is March 7th, which is when commenting via Google+ will be removed from all sites.
Lastly, in early March, Google+ Community owners and moderators will be able to download a full set of data from their communities. You can learn how to do that here.
Google+ for G Suite will remain active, there are no plans to shut down the enterprise version at this time.
