i have literally never heard of this service of theirs, but this doesn't bode well.
I did my Takeout and it was just a bunch of pictures I stored in hangouts.
But i don't trust it to be just that. Google's good at killing things.
email transcription
Hi Lupi,
You’re receiving this email because you’ve viewed Album Archive recently or you may have some content that is visible in Album Archive. Starting on July 19, 2023, Album Archive will no longer be available. We recommend that you use Google Takeout to download a copy of your Album Archive data before then.
Today, Album Archive lets you view and manage album content from some Google products within Album Archive.
However, some content that’s only available in Album Archive will be deleted starting July 19 including
- Rare cases like small thumbnail photos and album comments or likes
- Some Google Hangouts data from Album Archive
- Background images uploaded in the Gmail theme picker prior to 2018
If you would like to access this data, please make a copy of this data using Google Takeout. After Album Archive is no longer available, you can still use those Google products to view and manage some content directly – learn more.
The last free, easy to use website builder that actually works is being pulled apart because Google decided they don't like hosting images for free anymore. This deletion of "rare cases of thumbnails" includes my entire online portfolio, website base images, and every single image anyone ever uploaded through Blogger. This isn't small stuff, this is entire websites we're talkin about here.
The old internet is being systematically deleted. Every old how-to website that's only still live because they were built with Blogger is going to be axed.
so on the one hand this doesn't quite seem to be the case--it looks like this was (always?) a bewildering redundant service for blogger and there's still a way of handling images through blogger's specific interface?
but on the other hand it must be said: blogger has been effectively abandonware for years. the last "update" I can think of is when a few years ago they removed the list of tags from post drafts, making it so you now have to start typing for them to appear. besides this obnoxious and workflow hobbling change, and uh I guess maybe making the html draft view a little worse, I can't think of a single update to blogger in... christ I don't know, a decade? also if you got a blogger domain name through blogger itself, i.e. google domains, that's been sold to squarespace, so. I have to think this is at least some sign of where the wind is blowing for blogger itself.
it might be finally time for me to retire the website and build something new of my own.
which is a really cool thing to be thinking about simultaneous with every social media site undergoing rapid junkspacing, and while my hard drive with everything I've done for the last six months is still broken with no way of knowing if the data can be recovered :) cool cool cool
