How to Download All Data Stored in Your Google Accounts

Users that employ multiple Google services will be delighted to know that there's a quick and simple method to monitor and download everything they may have stored on the company's servers.

While this is particularly important if you ever decide to quit using the aforementioned services and give up on your Google presence entirely, quickly and efficiently downloading an archive of the data you may have in the various branches of your account is very useful in a multitude of other situations as well. As security experts and conspiracy theorists alike point out - it's useful to know what sort of information Google collects about its users in general and you in particular.

What Google Knows

By now it is more than obvious that Google knows a lot in general, and most savvy internet users have at least heard that Google knows a lot more about its users in particular. This is especially true for users that heavily employ such services as Google Maps or search – and, frankly, who doesn't?

As you can easily discover, Google collects and stores a lot of information about its users, such as name, gender, birthday, personal cell phone numbers, workplace, locations visited while carrying a Google device with a GPS app, hobby-related internet searches etc.

This easily accessible Google archive contains a copy of nearly everything the company has on its servers that pertains to you as a user of their services - Chrome bookmarks, locations stored in Google Maps, Gmail contacts, transactions from various Google services – it's all there!

All sorts of interesting and relevant data starts popping up once the user starts looking, including but not limited to:

Every place the user has ever searched in Google's Maps service.
All the apps the user has opened on Android, and a timetable of when they have been used.
Various Google Pay related services.
Everything the user has ever inquired Google Assistant.
Comment left on YouTube and all the videos the user may have watched.
Android apps the user may have searched for or downloaded.
Every news article that the user has shown any interest in on the Google News service.
Ads that the user has viewed or visited in any of Google's products.
All of the user's Gmail files including Spam and Trash.

How to download your Google data

There is a lot you can do with such detailed information, once you get your hands on it. Here's how you can do just that:

Go to http://takeout.Google.com/settings/takeout
Choose all the services that you want to 'back up'.
Choose the 'Next' button, located at the very bottom of the page.
Next, you need to choose the format in which you want to download your archive - you can pick a .ZIP file and then choose the maximum size – however, do keep in mind that this will split your data in individual 2GB .ZIP files. Choosing another format will allow for all of your data to be stored in one file, which may be significantly more convenient.
Following that, you need to select a preferred delivery method. You can choose to receive a link to download your archive via email or have the archive sent to Google Drive, Dropbox, and even Microsoft OneDrive.
Choose "Create Archive".
Wait for Google to compound all the data you wish to archive and gain access to. Keep in mind that the more data you want to archive, the more time that will take. The process has been known to take hours, or even – as much as a day, in the case of, especially large archives.