Important Announcement about Your Google+ Account
On the 2nd of April 2019, Google “will be shutting down consumer Google+ and will begin deleting content from consumer Google+ accounts. Photos and videos from Google+ in your album archive and on your Google+ pages will also be deleted.” If your gmail is associated with a G+ account you may have received an email from them. Here is an excerpt:
“No other Google products (such as Gmail, Google Photos, Google Drive or YouTube) will be shut down as part of the consumer Google+ shutdown, and the Google Account that you use to sign in to these services will remain. Please note that photos and videos already backed up in Google Photos will not be deleted.”
It is my understanding that business Google+ accounts will also be effected. If you have one of these you might want to take steps to download the content if there are photos or content you want to keep.
What To Do
- If you are not sure if you have a Google+ account, go look at your website. If you have a G+ in your social media links, visit the link to see your G+ account for your business. Or sign in to your gmail and then click on the icon that looks like a Rubic’s Cube and then click on the G+ icon.
- Review your content – is there anything you want to keep? You have the option of downloading your circles, +1s, photos and posts. In most cases I think you won’t want a copy. You should have the original photos on file since you uploaded them anyways. If you don’t have a lot of posts, you can just take a screenshot if you want to keep a record. However if you want to download your content follow the instructions in Step 3 BEFORE MARCH 31.
- Google also advises that: “Downloading your Google+ content may take time, so get started before 31 March 2019.” After you follow the instructions for downloading the content you want to save, you will receive an email notification. You can download the files in a zip. When you open the zip, it might look like this:
Additional Resources
Google My Business and Google+
Note that this is not the same as your Business Listing at Google. You may have a Business Listing AND a Google+ account (in fact at one time, Google created a G+ account for businesses automatically so you had no choice in the matter).
Originally the material I read about this situation said that it would not effect Google+ business but now it looks like they are shutting it down for everyone.
For more info:
