July 19 will be too late. Google has announced the end of its album archiving service. Little used and little known, it allowed you to keep your multimedia content (album thumbnails, photos, videos, wallpapers), but also data (likes, album comments, Hangouts data, etc.), previously published on defunct services.
So there is one month left to download all this data using Google Takeout and keep it.
These are essentially images forgotten by users, which were shared on platforms like Google Hangouts, replaced by Google Chat and other services that have since been shut down. Album Archive made it possible to visualize everything.
Affected users started receiving an email informing them of the upcoming service shutdown, explaining how to backup videos and photos that are mostly older than 2018. Even if you didn’t receive the email, it is still possible to download a file with all information for safety.
How to make a backup of your content?
If you had archived albums, you need to go to Google Takeout to download the photos and videos they contained. It can also be accessed from My Google Account > Data and privacy > Download or delete your data > Download your data.
You can then choose “Album Archive”. You will also get album and media metadata.
Everything then takes the form of a saved file that you can receive by email (validity: 7 days). You then have the possibility to use this content in services outside of Google (Box, Dropbox, OneDrive) or Google services such as Blogger, Google Drive, Google Photos or your Google account (you can also retrieve your stored Hangouts data and transmit it on Chat that replaced the service).
Google Workspace users should ask their administrator to complete the process.
Source: BFM TV
