Takeout for Google
Did you know Google has a takeout service? No, not for food, but for helping you get off of the free tier.
Google used to offer a free service to allow people to have a email service hosted through GMail in exchange for your privacy and custom ads. Over time that service included the “Sign in with Google” button that saved you from needing to remember your password and eventually they let you integrate that login with a bunch of other services that were also available to non-vanity-domain users. Now Google has decided to pull the rug out and force users to find a way to maintain their email but as a result, users may also lose all other things associated with that account.
This will most likely include documents and photos that might have been uploaded and backed up from your phone. In order to not lose these, you may need to use the Google Takeout service. Follow these steps to have a backup for yourself:
- Go to Google Takeout
- Select everything (to be safe), you may need to deselect, then select all.
- Go to “Next step” at the bottom.
- Select “Export once” for frequency and use “.tgz” for file type and pick the largest size
- Click on “Create export”
You’ll get an email after a few hours usually with a download link. Save the export to the largest floppy you can find.