Google Data Liberation Front
Engineering team at Google
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Google Data Liberation Front is an engineering team at Google whose "goal is to make it easier for users to move their data in and out of Google products."[1] The team, which consults with other engineering teams within Google on how to "liberate" Google products, currently supports 57 products.[2] The purpose of the Data Liberation Front is to ensure that data can be migrated from Google once an individual or company stops using their services[3] or the service is discontinued by Google.
Google Takeout
On June 28, 2011, Google's Data Liberation Front engineering team released their first product, after 4 years in development, called Google Takeout, which allows a Google user to export data from supported services.[4]
| Service | Date "liberated" | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Google Buzz | June 28, 2011[4] | |
| Google Circles and Contacts | June 28, 2011[4] | |
| Picasa Web Albums | June 28, 2011[4] | |
| Google profile | June 28, 2011[4] | |
| Google stream | June 28, 2011[4] | |
| +1 | July 15, 2011[5] | |
| Google Tasks | August 1, 2011[6] | via the Google Tasks Porter (not part of Google Takeout) |
| Google Voice | September 6, 2011[7] | |
| Gmail chat logs | September 15, 2011 | |
| Google Docs | January 24, 2012 | |
| YouTube | September 26, 2012[8] | Exports original videos only (no edits made with YouTube Studio) |
| Google Latitude | November 14, 2012[9] | |
| Google Reader | November 14, 2012[9] | |
| Google Calendar | December 5, 2013 | |
| Gmail | December 5, 2013[10] |
Data Transfer Project
On July 20, 2018, Google's Data Liberation Front engineering team announced the Data Transfer Project in partnership with Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter (now X), an ecosystem which features data portability between multiple online platforms without the need of downloading and re-uploading data.[11]
