How to delete your Google+ account and ensure that your data is safe

We went through the steps to delete a Google+ account so that you can easily take down your account and other associated personal data.

Google just announced that it is planning to shut down its in-house social network after revealing a serious security flaw. As reported previously, it was reported that the personal data of about 500.000 Google+ users were exposed to developers. The company revealed that the security issue was present for more than two years and Google did not take any action to fix the problem. The report noted that the lack of action was because of fear of investigation from regulators. This revelation comes right along with the announcement that Google is shutting down the consumer version of Google+ “over the next ten months”.

In the aftermath of the security flaw, the company added that it has added finer controls to the users so that they can better protect the data that they are sharing. It is possible that you may have signed up for a Google+ account when Google was almost pushing it on its users for using essential services including YouTube. It is also possible that you may have forgotten that you hold a Google+ account because you may not have used it again and we don’t really blame you for that.

In light of the security flaw, it is obvious for people to wonder about a way to remove their account from the service. So to make things easier for you, we went through the steps to delete your Google+ account so that you can remove your personal data.

Deleting your Google+ account

Step 1: Navigate to your Gmail and then click on your profile picture on the top right corner to reveal an expanded menu. Select “Google+ Profile” option. This option is right above the big blue “Google Account” button in the menu. In addition, users can also navigate to plus.google.com/u/0/me to visit the page directly. However, they need to be sure that they have logged in with their Google account on the browser.

Step 2: Once in your Google+ profile, click on the “Settings” link present on the left-hand side at the middle of the screen. This is just below the “Notifications” button on the left and above the “Send feedback”, and “Help” links.

Step 3: In the setting section, scroll to the bottom of the page in the “Account” section and select the “Delete your Google+ profile”. On selecting the option, Google will open a new page and ask you to verify your account.

Step 4: Once you have logged in with your account, Google will inform you about the consequences of deleting your account. You can check all the information in the drop-down menu. If you still want to delete your account then check the “Required: Yes, I understand that deleting the Google+ profile for USERNAME (E-mail ID) can’t be undone and the data I delete can’t be restored” and click the “Delete” button.

Once that is done, Google will navigate you to a survey which you can choose to skip.