Not many of us like thinking about death — especially our own. But making plans for what happens after you’re gone is really important for the people you leave behind. So today, we’re launching a new feature that makes it easy to tell Google what you want done with your digital assets when you die or can no longer use your account.

The feature is called Inactive Account Manager — not a great name, we know — and you’ll find it on your Google Account settings page. You can tell us what to do with your Gmail messages and data from several other Google services if your account becomes inactive for any reason.

For example, you can choose to have your data deleted — after three, six, nine or 12 months of inactivity. Or you can select trusted contacts to receive data from some or all of the following services: +1s; Blogger; Contacts and Circles; Drive; Gmail; Google+ Profiles, Pages and Streams; Picasa Web Albums; Google Voice and YouTube. Before our systems take any action, we’ll first warn you by sending a text message to your cellphone and email to the secondary address you’ve provided.

We hope that this new feature will enable you to plan your digital afterlife — in a way that protects your privacy and security — and make life easier for your loved ones after you’re gone.


Posted by Andreas Tuerk, Product Manager

Your Takeout menu is growing.  Today's entrée:  YouTube videos.

Previously, you've been able to download individual transcoded videos from your YouTube Video Manager.  But starting today, you also have a more efficient way to download your videos from YouTube. With Google Takeout, you can download all of the original videos that you have uploaded in a few simple clicks.  No transcoding or transformation -- you’ll get exactly the same videos that you first uploaded.  Your videos in.  Your videos out.




Posted by Brian Hawkins, YouTube Engineer and Data Liberator.

When we started the Data Liberation Front in 2007, we encouraged everyone to ask three questions about the products they were using:

1. Can I get my data out at all?
2. How much is it going to cost to get my data out?
3. How much of my time is it going to take to get my data out?

But we forgot an important detail: the ability to do something useful with the data once you take it out. With that in mind, we’ve modified our first question to emphasize the importance of being able to download your data in an open, interoperable, portable format:

Two and a half weeks ago, we launched Google Takeout, and the response has been overwhelming: you want more data in Google Takeout! Well, we’ve heard you, and have a little more data to tide you over for now: Takeout now includes a list of the websites that you’ve +1’ed.

We’ve still got plenty more data to liberate -- including +1’s on stream posts and comments -- but we just wanted to give you a quick update.

Posted by Brian Fitzpatrick, The Data Liberation Front

Since we began in 2007, the Data Liberation Front has been focused on one thing: making it easier for you to take your data in and out of Google. Our first step was to make it easier to get your data out of our products, one product at a time. While we’ve made great progress on this front, we’ve been on the lookout for even better ways to let you take your data out of Google.

Today we’re pleased to announce the Data Liberation Front’s first revolutionary product: Google Takeout.

Google Takeout lets you take your data out of multiple Google products in one fell swoop. Moreover, you’ll find that all your data is in portable and open formats‚ so it’s easy to import to other services quickly.

Today, we’re launching with five products:


These are just the beginning: we will be adding more Google products as time goes on, so stay tuned. For now, check out the settings menu in Google+ or visit google.com/takeout to give Takeout a try.

Posted by Brian Fitzpatrick, The Data Liberation Front

This week Google Alerts joins the expanding group of liberated Google products by launching a feature that allows you to export your alerts. You can now access all the data about your alerts (search terms, type, etc.) in CSV format.

To try it out:

1. Head on over to Google Alerts


2. Sign in


3. Follow the link to the management page


4. Click the "Export alerts" link, you will find it above the list of your alerts, on the right-hand side

If you don’t have a Google account, you will have to either create a Google account for your email address, or add the email address to an existing Google account.

Enjoy your cage-free data!

Posted by Robert Leland, Google Alerts team

After talking about Data Liberation on This Week in Google, we've gotten a lot of requests for Data Liberation stickers. Well, if you want to become a member of the Data Liberation cooperative, we've got eggzactly what you're looking for, so to find out how to get a sticker, read on!



Our stickers are gorgeous full-color 3" x 5" vinyl stickers that look just as good on a laptop as they do on an egg carton, and if you'd like to get one, just send a self-addressed stamped envelope to:

The Data Liberation Front
c/o Google
20 W. Kinzie, Floor 9
Chicago, IL 60610

Our lawyers told us that, unfortunately, we can't ship these stickers outside of the United States. Also, we won't be collecting your addresses for any purpose whatsoever--they're going right into the shredder for use as bedding in the henhouse!

The only thing that you need to send us is a self-addressed stamped envelope. If you're so inclined (and this is completely optional), drop in a postcard from your city and we'll add it to the collage on the wall of our barn (and we'll post pictures of it from time to time).

Of course--and this is also completely optional--we'd love to see the stickers in action, so once you get the sticker, please send a tweet to @dataliberation with a picture of the sticker at its new home--like this:



And lastly, no chickens were harmed in the production of these stickers. (although we did have a few nice omelets with hash browns. Mmmmm.... hash browns....)

Posted by Brian Fitzpatrick, The Data Liberation Front