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Google Takeout

Project by the Google Data Liberation Front

Field	Value
title	Google Takeout
name	Google Takeout
screenshot	Google Takeout Screenshot.png
screenshot size	160px
caption	The bottom of Google Takeout interface.
developer	Google
released	2011
website

Google Takeout, also known as Download Your Data, is a project by the Google Data Liberation Front that allows users of Google products, such as YouTube and Gmail, to export their data to a downloadable archive file.

Usage

Users can select different services from the list of options provided. , the services that can be exported are as follows:

Access Log Activity
Android Device Configuration Service
Assignments
Blogger (service)
Canvas
Crisis User Reports
Cursive
Data Shared for Research
Discover
Embark
Firebase Dynamic Links
Fitbit
Gemini (chatbot)
Gmail
Google Account
Google Alerts
Google Arts & Culture
Google Business Profile
Google Calendar
Google Chat
Google Chrome
Google Classroom
Google Cloud Search
Google Contacts
Google Developers
Google Drive
Google Earth
Google Feedback
Google Fi Wireless
Google Finance
Google Fit
Google Groups
Google Help Communities
Google Keep
Google Maps
Google Meet
Google Messages
Google News
Google One
Google Pay
Google Photos
Google Play
Google Play Books
Google Play Console
Google Play Games
Google Play Movies & TV
Google Podcasts
Google Shopping
Google Store
Google Street View
Google Tasks
Google Translator Toolkit
Google Voice
Google Workspace Marketplace
Home App
Maps (your places)
My Activity
My Maps
Network Planner
NotebookLM
Personal Safety
Phone Audio
Pinpoint
Profile
Purchases & Reservations
Recorder
Reminders
Saved
Search Contributions
Search Notifications
Timeline
YouTube
YouTube Music

The user can select to export all of the available services or choose services from the above list. Takeout will then prompt the user to select file type, frequency, and destination, and proceed to process the request and put all the files into an archive file. Takeout additionally sends an email notification when the export is completed, at which point the user can download the archive from the downloads section of the website. The archive file contains a separate folder for each service that was selected for export.

Removed Services

These services were previously available through Google Takeout but have since been removed due to the data no longer existing:

3D Warehouse (due to spinoff of SketchUp)
Google Bookmarks
Google Buzz
Google Code Project Hosting
Google Hangouts
Google Hangouts On Air
Google Latitude
Google Play Music
Google Reader
Google Stadia
Google+ +1s, Circles, Pages, Streams and posts
Hands Free
Input Tools
Knol
Orkut
Picasa Web Albums
Textcube

History

Google Takeout was created by the Google Data Liberation Front on June 28, 2011

Takeout started with exports of only Google Buzz, Google Contacts, Google Profile, Google Streams, and Picasa Albums. Later in 2011 on September 6, Google added Google Voice to their export service. A big milestone was the addition of YouTube video exports to Takeout next year on September 26, 2012. Google took another big step with the addition of Blogger posts and Google+ pages on February 17, 2013.

On December 5, 2013, Google Takeout was further expanded to include Gmail and Google Calendar data.

They have added specialized transfer capabilities for Google Photos, allowing transfer of all media from Google Photos to Apple – iCloud Photos, Flickr, Microsoft One Drive and SmugMug.

Criticism

Google does not delete user data automatically after exporting; they provide a separate service to perform deletion. There is no way to delete a Takeout export until it expires after 7 days.

Google Takeout has also been criticized for keeping the Takeout data available for too short a time for many users with large files to easily download everything before the batch expires (after 7 days), in essence "trapping" users with large data and slow bandwidth in Google's services.

Earlier criticisms were raised that Google Takeout did not allow users to export from some core Google services, most notably Google Search history and Google Wallet details. Google has since expanded the service to include search history and Wallet details (September 2016).

References

(July 20, 2018). "Introducing Data Transfer Project: an open source platform promoting universal data portability". Google Open Source Blog.
(June 28, 2011). "The Data Liberation Front Delivers Google Takeout". Google.
(2024-02-16). "What is Google Takeout, and how do you download your Google data through it?".
(2025-06-10). "Google Takeout".
(January 24, 2012). "Now offering Docs for Takeout".
(November 14, 2012). "Two new services added to Takeout".
(February 14, 2013). "A perfect match: Blogger and Google+ Pages for Takeout".
(September 6, 2011). "New on the Menu: Google Voice for Google Takeout". Google.
Lardinois, Frederic. (26 September 2012). "Google Adds YouTube Support To Google Takeout, Now Lets You Download Your Original Video Files".
Fingas, Jon. (February 17, 2013). "Google Takeout now liberating Blogger and Google+ Pages". Engadget.
Piepmeier, Nick. "Download a copy of your Gmail and Google Calendar data". Official Gmail Blog.
https://takeout.google.com/takeout/transfer/custom/photos {{Bare URL inline. (July 2025)
"Download your data - Google Account Help".
Null, Christopher. (May 21, 2012). "'Liberating' Your Data from Google, and What That Really Means". PCWorld.

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

google-services internet-properties-established-in-2011

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