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How to save your Google Allo chats before the app is shut down

How to save your Google Allo chats before the app is shut down

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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

After pausing work on the app several months ago, Google Is shutting down Allo on March 12th. The company says that it’s shifting all of its focus for a consumer messaging app toward Messages, which is used by over 175 million people monthly. Allo, on the other hand, never managed to gain any sort of real traction with consumers — but some people do actually use it. To help prevent those users from losing any conversations, Google is making it easy to export Allo data, using an update with the new option. You’ll know it’s the latest update if the app version is 27, as noted by Android Police. Allo for iOS has also been updated with the export tool.

Go to Settings —> Chat. Right at the top, you’ll see two options for exporting Allo data.

Choose “export messages” to preserve your conversations. This will create a CSV file with a log of all your current chats in the Allo app.

Choose “export media” to preserve the photos, videos, and other files contained in your Allo chats. Allo will combine everything into a single ZIP file.

Picking either option will bring up the Android system share sheet, which will let you conveniently transfer either the chat log or media package to any app you have installed that will accept them. Obvious candidates for backup purposes would be Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive. But you should also be able to attach them to an email or drop them into any number of services. You can’t just transfer your Allo chats into Google’s Messages app, however.

For more information, you can check Google’s backup page.

Google says it has already brought several of Allo’s best features over to Messages. But some (like the ability to change the size of text in the messages you send to “shout” or “whisper”) haven’t yet made their way over. Here’s hoping.

Editor’s note, March 12, 2018, 1:25AM ET: Changed the article to reflect final date that Allo was being sunsetted.