You finally decided to delete your Google account. While it may seem impossible to leave Google as we use their services on a daily basis, the company has made the process simple and easy to follow. You can delete everything associated with your Google account or delete certain Google services such as Gmail or Google Drive and keep other services and your Google account intact.
When you delete Google from your life, you need to find alternative apps to replace the alternatives it offers. In this guide, we talk about alternatives to popular Google apps. But before we continue, there are some things you should know before deleting your Google account.
Things to consider before deleting your Google account
When you delete your entire Google account, you lose access to apps, subscriptions, services, and data linked to your account. Here are some of the things that are affected by the deletion of your Google account:
- You lose access to data saved in Google services such as Google Drive, Gmail, YouTube, Google Contacts, and Google Photos.
- your Google Maps travel history, Your Google Search history and you lose your online history, including your YouTube watch history.
- You cannot recover accounts created on third-party websites using your Google account.
- If you are using an Android smartphone, you will lose access to the Play Store.
- Without a Google Account, you won’t be able to use your Chromebook productively. You can use a guest account, but when you log out it will delete all files, cookies, website data and browsing activity.
- Your current Google username will be lost forever and you cannot re-create your Google account with the same username.
When you delete a Google account, you will lose all data associated with that account. So if you’re ready to say goodbye to Google, you can lose a lot. But you don’t need to lose your data. Google allows you to download your account data. We recommend that you follow these steps to download your data before permanently deleting your Google account.
Use Google Takeout to download data before deleting your Google account
Launched in 2011, Google Takeout is a platform that allows you to download a copy of the data Google has about you. The platform makes it easy to export and download data from all Google apps and services at once. The advantage of using Google Takeout is that you can use Google Takeout to collect all your data in one place, rather than exporting data separately from multiple Google apps. You can download your contacts, photos, notes, Google Maps history, emails and anything else Google has about you.
- takeout.google.com Go to , and open the Google Takeout settings page. This opens a list of all the Google services you use.
- Everything is automatically selected by default, so deselect any information you don’t want to download.
- Click the Next Step button.
- Choose the delivery method of your data. You can get a download link via email or save it to cloud services like Drive, OneDrive, Box or Dropbox.
- Choose the frequency, file type and size, but the default settings should work fine.
- Click the Create export button to continue.
Depending on the download size, it may take some time for Google to send you the download link. Once you get the link, you have one week to download your data.
Before deleting your account, reconfigure all accounts on third-party websites created using the Google account you are deleting.
How can you delete your Google account?
With everything backed up, it’s time to take the final step: completely deleting your Google account. Here is a step-by-step guide showing you how to delete your Google account.
- accounts.google.com Go to Google account settings page.
- Select the data and privacy option and Other options go to menu.
- Delete Your Google Account Click .
- Authenticate using your Google account password.
- Accept the two thanks at the bottom of the page.
- To delete your Google account forever Delete the account Click the button.
Delete individual Google services
Google allows users to delete services one by one. It is a less serious alternative to deleting all data associated with your Google account. For example, you can keep your Gmail account active but delete all other linked services like YouTube, Google Maps and more.
- accounts.google.com Go to and open the Google account settings page.
- Select Data & privacy option and scroll down to find Download or delete your data option.
- Click Delete a Google service and authenticate with your password.
- To delete a Google service, next to trash Click the icon.
Replace Google apps with alternatives
When you completely delete Google from your life, you will realize that you use many Google applications in your daily life. If you want to remove Google from your life, you will have to use alternatives for these applications. We have some great options that can help you delete Google apps from your life.
Replace Google Chrome with Mozilla Firefox
Google Chrome is the most used browser in the world, and if you’re using it, it’s time to let it go. When you want to change Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge or Vivaldi, because these browsers also use the Chromium engine.
The best alternative to Google Chrome Mozilla Firefox‘type. It uses the super fast Quantum browser engine. It also has a huge library of addons that rival the Google Chrome extension library. Mozilla Firefox is one of the best browsers you can use on Android, Windows and other platforms. iOS users can use the default Safari app to browse the web on iPhone, iPad and Mac devices.
Switch from Google Maps to open source alternatives
Google Maps is the most difficult Google app to replace as there is no comparable alternative in the Android world. If you’re using an iPhone, Apple Maps has been developed at a rapid pace and can be used especially in developed countries where Apple products are widely used. If you’re on Android, choose one of the open source alternatives to Google Maps.
Switch from Gmail to Proton Mail
Most of us use Gmail as our email account provider, as it’s free to use and doesn’t require us to set up our own domain. Proton Mail is a good option if you want to delete Gmail from your life. The best thing about Proton Mail is that your emails are encrypted, so it’s more secure than Google’s Gmail. Other options you may want to consider for changing your Gmail address are Zoho Mail and Microsoft Outlook.
Use Google Play Store alternatives
Who wants to delete Google Play Store from their life Android smartphone users will have to look for an alternative way to install apps on their devices. If you prefer to use open source applications for privacy and security reasons, F-Droid It is an excellent Google Play alternative.
You can use F-Droid to install and update open source apps on your Android device. If you want a place to download popular apps, Amazon App Store and APK Mirror are some of the best options.
Replace Google Search with DuckDuckGo
DuckDuckGo is one of the most popular and widely used privacy-focused search engines. If you want a private search experience, use DuckDuckGo instead of Google Search. In some cases, if you are not satisfied with the search results, you can use its built-in feature to run your query on Google Search without sharing your private data. Bing.com also appears as an alternative.
Other Google apps alternatives
Similar to the examples above, you can find alternatives to other Google apps. For example, you can replace Google Drive with One Drive or create your own Google Drive alternative using the Synology NAS system. You can use WhatsApp instead of Google Messages, Zoom instead of Google Meet, etc. you can use. A simple web search can help you find a valuable alternative for the Google app you are using.
Permanently delete Google account and associated data
Thanks to Google for making the account deletion process easy. You are now free from Google. However, to maintain your communication with the outside world, there are some to encrypted messaging apps You may want to take a look.