This week, Google shut down the Album Archives service, a feature that used to store images and videos posted on older Google services like Hangouts and Picasa. The final upload date for this content was just before last Wednesday (19).

It served as a kind of repository for photos and videos published on older Google services such as Hangouts, Google Plus, Blogger, and Picasa Web Albums. Some of this content is also available on other Google services such as Google Photos and Google Chat, but others only existed there.

To make life easier for users who would like to keep some content from album archives, Google has recommended using Google Takeout, a data export tool. This allowed users to download all data from an album archive into a single ZIP file that could be emailed directly or uploaded to the cloud.

It is important to note that the termination of the service will not affect Google Photos, which will continue to store and manage all user photos and videos. In addition, some services that store content in album archives, such as Blogger, will continue to access and manage this content.

Album archives are not among the most popular Google services

Google launched the Photo Archive in 2016, and despite not being widely known, it served as a place to store images and videos shared by older Google services. With the closure of this service, Google continues the trend of ending support for less popular services.

Even if the shutdown of the service meant that some users had to rush to save files, others were able to enjoy the memories that the photos brought back. There are several posts on the Internet about people who have found photos they no longer remember and have access again due to the shutdown of the product.

Google is raising the cost of YouTube Premium in the US
YouTube already raised the cost of the platform’s family plan last year.

Source: Forbes

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