Those of us who thought MySpace was the only social media site for everyone were proven wrong with time. With more minds concerned with taking social media to the next level, a new application comes around almost everyday now. This has also built up the competition between social media applications. If one social networking site has a good amount of users, another application can come along with excellent number of users. Some applications, still, manage to keep their grounds, popularity and users. In fact, they attract more and more users each day. Of course, it takes a lot to keep an application up to date to make sure it remains fresh, in touch with recent trends, and users never forget the memories they made on it. However, since accessing the content on each of these social media sites requires your own account, you end up creating one. One of such social media networking site is Google+ by Google itself. If you are a regular Gmail user, you must have a Google+ account as well. In this article, still, we will teach you how to delete your Google+ account without disturbing your Gmail address and YouTube access!
Founded back in 1998, Google is an American based technology company. Google predominately specializes in Internet based services and internet related products such as Google’s advertising technologies, Google search, Google’s cloud computing, Google Chrome browser and so on. Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin from Stanford University. Google also provides services for work through software like Google docs, Google Sheets and slides, email (Gmail), Google Drive, Google Calendar and social media as well; Google+.
Google+ experienced a strong engagement in its initial years. More and more Google users began creating their Google+ profiles to connect with their Gmail connections; both friends and families. Launched in 2011, Google+ includes a variety of features such as the option of posting photos, updating your status to share what goes on in your mind and day, the option of grouping connections; for example, people you know as “friends” and people you work with as “acquaintances”. This way you can create your own Google Circles. Google+ also offers instant messaging with multiple persons together or separately. Other than that, Google+ connects with Google’s texting and messaging application called “Hangouts” which also enables Google+ users to interact with the other party using video based calls. Google+ further allows users to tag each other in pictures, videos, statuses and so on; Share events you are going to, the location you are currently at and edit your photos in private albums. The albums you upload on Google+ are cloud-based; this means they will stay there forever and can be transferred to any other online vicinity! Rumor has it that Facebook felt threatened by the success of Google+ back in the day and began competing with Google+ to keep its grounds solid.
However, statistics revealed the actual reason for the growth of Google+ users. According to an analysis conducted by Ars Technica, Google+ sign up statistics increased because many Google users only wished to avail other Google services. Hence, many of these signups were a byproduct of accidental signups. While the numbers of Google+ users kept increasing, on average, the users only spent a small fraction of time when compared with other social networking sites. Still, statistics revealed that Google+ was able to reach approximately 10 million users in only two weeks, right after its launch. What was more astonishing was that Google+ experienced about 25 million accounts in only a month. And, by the first year, the users increased to about 90 million. Nevertheless, according to ComScore Google+ users only spent an average of 3.3 minutes when compared to an average of 7.5 hours on Facebook!
While the Google+ team has began working on a major shift for this social media platform, like many users, you might wish to delete your Google+ account. What could be some of the underlying reasons for wanting to delete your Google+ account then? Picture this- You began using your Gmail address more often when you entered a new era of your life- College, mainly. With each course you took, you were required to receive daily emails regarding your assignments, term papers and feedback. One night, after your very hard semester ended, you were going through your Gmail emails to delete any unnecessary emails that took up extra space. When you refreshed your page, however, you received an invitation by Google itself to join Google+ within seconds. The interface intrigued you and you made your Google+ account in under a minute then. However, while in the beginning you used Google+ every now and then, you noticed yourself withdrawing with this social media page over time. Now, you go months without checking any updates on your Google+ account. Your account sits on your wall of old social media accounts. Still, from time to time, you receive notifications in your email about any recent posts by pages and interests you have liked. Although, this has begun to annoy you. You feel the pressure to login and check or update your profile but its of no use. None of your family members or friends use Google+ anyway. So, you decide that an extra social media account is only crowding your space. And then, you might just decide to delete your Google+ account!
We have endless number of online accounts. Whether they are your shopping accounts, bank accounts, academia based accounts or social media accounts. But at the end of the day, just how many of them do you really use? All these accounts require maintenance. Without that, these accounts are just one big crowd you would want no part of. Similarly, Google+ is of no use if you do not even connect with anyone over there. Your information and your public pictures then are just creating more and more opportunities for spammers and hackers to attack you. Before such experiences plant their roots, it is better to choose the option that allows you to delete your Google+ account. Another reason why you would want to delete your Google+ account is when you find out that Google+ has nothing new to offer you. Of course, this is subjective. However, as a user you might find that Google+ is either hard to function, get familiar with and the features are similar to any other social media network you can use. Then, keeping a Google+ account is simply unnecessary. Whatever caused your decision to delete your Google+ account, the process of getting rid of it is the same for everyone!
I am sure, so how do I delete my Google+ account now?
In order to delete your Google+ account, you will first be required to visit your Google+ account. In order to do that, simply click on http://plus.google.com/downgrade. Once you open this link, you will be asked to enter your email address and then your password for Google+, the account you wish to eliminate forever.
When you are signed in to your account, you will directly visit the Google+ deletion page. You do not have to look around and figure out where to go and which tab to open in order to delete your Google+ account! In this window, at the bottom you will notice two statements with a box to the right. These statements are as following:
- “Also unfollow me from anyone I am following in other Google products.”
- “Required: Yes, I understand that deleting the Google+ profile for (your email address) cannot be undone and the date I delete cannot be restored.”
Simply check these two boxes. Once you are done, at the bottom you will notice a blue Delete button. Hitting this button will then permanently delete your Google+ account!
You must however, understand that this means that your Google+ account and its URL will be removed from the cyber world completely. This also means that any pictures, videos, important messages, contacts or Hangouts data you had will be gone. So, if you wish to keep these important media files, it’s best to create a backup for them beforehand. Because once Google+ is gone, it’s going to take everything along with it!
A common misconception many users of Google+ have is that deleting their Google+ account will remove their Gmail account and YouTube account as well. This misconception often stops users to then delete their accounts. However, while your Gmail account and your YouTube accounts are related or connected with Google+, they are not “linked” or subordinates of this social media. So, deleting your Google+ account will not disturb your emails or YouTube activity. Of course, when you wish to delete your Google+ account or any other social media account, it’s always better to double cross and double check your queries along with your decision. Regretting it later is not going to help anyone! Still, deleting it once does not mean that Google will hold a grudge against you and stop you from signing up for a Google+ account again. While this account will be completely new, you will get the chance of experiencing what Google+ team is coming up with this year!
Hina Akram 
Michelle