Google has announced that it will shut down its Album Archive service, adding one more to the list of features it has discontinued over the years. The tech giant began informing users about the upcoming closure via email, stating that the Album Archive will no longer be accessible starting from July 19, 2023.
The Album Archive service, which many users may recognize as the repository for their old Hangouts images, will no longer be available. The content set to be deleted includes small thumbnail photos, album comments or likes, some Google Hangouts data from Album Archive, and background images uploaded in the Gmail theme picker prior to 2018. Google is recommending users who wish to keep this data make a copy using Google Takeout, a service that allows users to download data from Google products.
Notably, the photos and videos shared on Hangouts, which are currently organized in the Album Archive by conversation, should remain accessible in Google Chat even after the shutdown. This data, however, will be deleted from the Album Archive starting from July 19, 2023. Users are advised to download a copy of the data before the shutdown date to avoid losing access to their content.
Users who want to save their photos and other data are urged to act quickly, as after July 19, they will be out of luck.
