Google Plus

Google+ will shut down for consumers on April 2nd, some features killed as soon as next week

Ben Schoon | Jan 30 2019 - 12:51 pm PT

It’s been a long road, but Google+ is finally about to kiss this world goodbye. The polarizing social network is losing its consumer version very soon, and now we’ve finally got specific dates. The consumer version of Google+ ends on April 2nd, 2019.

After first announcing a fairly gracious timeline for shutting the platform down, Google+ saw its sunset sped up dramatically after a second security bug was revealed and impacted millions. Clearly, Google is wasting no time in clearing Google+ off of the web.

Revealed today on the company’s support pages, Google+ is shutting down for consumers on April 2nd, 2019. As originally stated, Google is closing the platform due to “low usage” and the “challenges involved with maintaining a successful product that meets… expectations.”

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. You can download and save your content, just make sure to do so before April. The process of deleting content from consumer Google+ accounts, Google+ Pages, and Album Archive will take a few months, and content may remain through this time.

Google says that some features tied to Google+ will be killed off as soon as next week. on February 4th, the platform will no longer accept new profiles, pages, communities, or events. Blogger will also drop Google+ comments on this date, and that functionality will start being removed from other sites on March 7th.

Also in March, Google says that Google+ Community moderators/owners will be able to gain additional tools for downloading data, including the author, body, and photos for every community post in a public community.

Finally, on April 2nd, the consumer version of Google+ will be shutdown entirely. Unless you have a G Suite account, you’ll no longer be able to access Google+, and data will start being deleted. This includes all of your posts, pages, and photos and videos that aren’t already backed up to Google Photos. The APIs and Google+ sign-in buttons that Google started disabling this year will also cease to function.

If you were an avid Google+ user, you’ll probably want to take the time to download all of your data from the platform. We’ve got a handy tutorial available for that, and Android Police points out a third-party option aptly named Google+ Exporter which promises a “well-documented structure.”