If you want to revisit your long ignored Orkut profile, now is the best time to do so. Google is going to shut down its Orkut social network on September 30, as it had announced earlier. Orkut was the search giant's first foray into the social networking space, which failed to take off due to tough competition from rival services such as Facebook and Twitter.
If you are still an active user or if you have some data there that you'd like to download, there are easy ways to do so. Before you begin, know that you can't download information from other people's accounts. Google only lets you download data from your own Orkut account. This also means you won't be able to download the scraps or testimonials you sent to other people. You can only download the scraps and testimonials you've received and their comments.
Photos
You can export your photos to your Google+ account with this link http://www.orkut.com/AlbumsExport or save them to your computer. By default, the albums you export to Google+ will be set as private and only you will be able to see them. You won’t be able to log in to your account to see your photos or export your them to Google+ after today, though you have until September 2016 to save them to your computer using Google Takeout. Google Takeout lets you download your profile, received scraps, received testimonials activities and photos in a zip file. To do this:
- Go to Google+ and log in to your account.
- Now open Orkut's album export page.
- Click to select each album you want to export or choose "Select all".
- Click "Import selected". This will transfer your photos to Google+. All these photos will only be visible to you. You'll have to change their privacy settings to make them visible to others.
If you want to save the pictures and scraps to your computer instead, you can use Google Takeout. This service lets you download all your Orkut account data in a zip file. The file will contain HTML files and photos. Google says you can download your profile, scraps received, testimonials received, activities and your photos from Orkut. You will be able to download your Orkut data using Google Takeout until September 2016. This is how to download your Orkut data:
- Head to Google Takeout and sign in if you haven't already done so.
- Click "Choose services" and then select Orkut.
- Click "Create archive" and wait till the archive is ready. If you like, you can leave the page, and receive an email when the archive is ready.
- Once the archive is ready, click Download. Google says there's no limit on how many times you can download your Orkut information.
Google says on its blog that public communities will get added to Google’s archives once it dumps Orkut. All conversations including polls, topics and comments will be searchable and can be viewed publicly on the web. If you’ve created your own communities, deleting your profile won’t delete the communities you’ve created, but will only remove your name behind your comments. You will need to delete communities separately before deleting your profile.