My De-Googling Update – April 2026

A quick Google Internet search (feel free to replace our mental default of 'Google' to your search engine of choice in that sentence!) of the phrase 'de-Googling' will show a wide range of articles, Reddit posts, and personalised journeys of people going through the process of surgically removing themselves from the Google ecosystem.

We all got ourselves stuck in the quicksand of the Google suite of products because of the original convenience benefits of linked services working together in fairly smart ways. I remember the enjoyment of seeing location metadata embedded into my photos so that I could see a cool 'journey' of my holidays as I trekked between cities. Being able to set reminders & tasks based on specific sentences in my Gmail emails seemed sensible enough. But over time we've all felt the creep factor increase more and more. With the huge amount of information captured from mobile phones over the last decade or so, the data collection ecosystem has gone into overdrive.

For many people I know, the penny drop moment often came from the serving of ads that went a bit too far. It was usually about seeing ads on a laptop or desktop, after discussing it earlier that day while their mobile phone was in earshot. That lightbulb moment people often get is the realisation that Google (and other big tech companies) are always listening. It was the initial reason behind why I wanted to de-Google my life – I wanted to simultaneously stop being treated as a consumer (which is how Google makes their money off me) and I wanted more control over my digital identity more generally.

My goals have shifted over time as well; I'm now keen to break away from all of the (mostly US-based) large commercial technology companies, as companies such as Meta, X, Spotify, Microsoft, Amazon & others seem to act in the same way as Google.

My current de-Googling status

I've been slowly de-Googling my life for two and a half years now, starting with the migration of my personal email account in late 2023. I would recommend it as the best place to start, since a lot of accounts tend to stem from your email address and I think migrating your email address is a gradual change; it isn't something you can finish in an afternoon.

Before getting into what I've done so far, I'll mention that it's always surprising to see the range of products you need to adopt if you want to break away from Google. Google ties in a huge number of services to one single account and the convenience & simplicity of an all-in-one service is really tough to overcome.

But if you're reading this, you're already intrigued by the idea of not letting the Big G have a monopoly over your digital identity and you're tempted by the ability to take action.

With that all said, here are the list of actions I've taken to remove myself from Google's ecosystem to date:

It's been a good, satisfying journey so far, and I don't think my day-to-day digital life has become more complicated – with the exception of not using the “Login via Google” button for some accounts. I've tried not to burn myself out by changing too many things at once, and mainly I've been spending an hour here & there whenever I have the motivation.

The biggest shift was changing email providers, which triggered migrating a huge range of miscellaneous accounts from my old Gmail to my current Proton Mail address. That in itself triggered a lot of questions of “why do I still have this account” which allowed me to delete anything that hadn't been used in years. It was a great way to clean up my digital footprint.

Current de-Googling goals

I've got a few immediate goals that I want to get through during 2026 – let's see how I go with these:

  1. Migrate old Google Photos to Synology Photos – I've been starting with migrating old photos around 2010-12 to my NAS, and deleting them from Google Photos accordingly. I don't know if I'm ready to stop using Google Photos completely, as there are a bunch of shared albums with friends that are useful. I'm also open to shifting away from Synology Photos and using another photo management tool, but just getting the data away from Google is the first step.
  2. Clean up my Google Contacts list, and find a replacement to store & back up my contacts – I haven't seen a good replacement yet but I'm sure there are a few options out there.
  3. Continue to migrate documents out of Google Drive. With Proton Drive adding a spreadsheet tool this is now possible (most of my GDrive usage is spreadsheets). I also have a folder full of Google Docs files with Recipes that is shared with some friends that I don't know how I'll migrate. Might just have to leave an old version there and maintain a live version in Proton Drive.
  4. Keep reducing my Facebook usage, eventually being in a position to delete my Facebook account entirely – I don't know if I can do that when some features are useful & important to me. The main ones are Marketplace for buying/selling second hand items, and connecting with local community groups. It's also a good way to hear about good local events that I wouldn't hear about otherwise.
  5. Use Freetube on my personal desktop, to replace Youtube – this has been good, but it's not a full solution since there's no mobile equivalent that I've found. On the other hand, using Freetube only on desktop might reduce my tendency to spend time watching videos in general which is always a good thing!

Future steps to take & problems to be solved

For some things, the convenience & usefulness of some Google apps is too much to overcome, at least for now. These are the products I think I'll stick with for the foreseeable future:

The barrier to entry

It's easy for me to write out a list of alternate services and recommend “just do this” but in reality de-Googling requires a lot of work, both initially & ongoing. These services are designed to be difficult to break away from, so prepare to be frustrated at the inability for some things to be migrated. For some, the feeling of starting fresh might be a good thing but if you've personalised and curated your personal information or preferences in a certain way, losing that isn't acceptable.

I also recognise that some of the above steps can be cost-prohibitive. Notably, the cost of buying & configuring a NAS to manage a media library isn't achievable for most people, especially when you consider the cost of buying terabytes of physical storage – all to save paying for a few monthly subscriptions. Financially, the maths doesn't work out or has a really long time to pay off – let alone the time you'll spend maintaining your own hardware & software. If you're only looking at the financial outcome, you'll never justify it. I also don't think it's economically or environmentally viable for every household to have their own NAS either. To that point, all I can recommend is to look at pooling resources together with friends or family so that you have a shared media library, as you still get the benefit of not being tied to the tech giants.

Some other good reads about de-Googling

https://brunty.me/post/de-googling-my-email-contacts-calendar/

https://tuta.com/blog/degoogle-list

#deGoogle #technology #SelfHosting