Google has always been one of the boldest tech companies when it comes to experimenting. It launches services in nearly every corner of our digital lives, from social networking and messaging to music, gaming, and productivity. Yet, just as quickly as it creates new tools, it has a long history of quietly shutting them down. Sometimes the reasoning is clear, whether it is low adoption, stronger alternatives, or a change in strategy. Other times, it feels as though Google pulls the plug on apps that were genuinely loved and still useful.
Interestingly, Google is not alone. Microsoft has also retired plenty of familiar apps over the years, often stirring the same mix of frustration and nostalgia.
Google Reader
As a news addict, this one stung
If there’s one Google product I still miss, it has to be Google Reader. It showed up in 2005 as an RSS aggregator that neatly pulled all your favorite sites and blogs into a single, customizable feed. For anyone tired of algorithm-driven timelines, it felt like a calmer and more deliberate way to follow the web. Of course, it could get overwhelming if you subscribed to too much, but that was part of the charm.
When Google pulled the plug in 2013, blaming low usage, the absence felt heavier than the stats would have suggested. Other services like Feedly, Inoreader, and The Old Reader rushed in with plenty of solid features, even more than Reader had. Still, none of them quite managed to capture what made Reader special. It was fast; it was simple, and it was woven so cleanly into the rest of Google’s ecosystem.
Play Music
Replaced but never truly forgotten
These days, the music streaming stage is pretty much dominated by Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music. But before all that, there was Google Play Music. Launched in 2011, it stood out because it combined a subscription streaming service with a personal music locker. You could upload up to 50,000 of your own songs to the cloud and access them anywhere, alongside millions of tracks in the catalog.
When Google folded Play Music into YouTube Music in 2020, much of the infrastructure carried over. You can still upload your own tracks through the YouTube Music website on desktop, and yes, it will play local files, too, but the experience just doesn’t feel the same way. In Play Music, your personal library was central to the service, while in YouTube Music, it feels more like a side feature, overshadowed by the focus on videos, recommendations, and playlists.
Google Inbox
Email made smarter, then gone
In 2014, Google introduced Inbox by Gmail, an experimental email app meant to reimagine how we interact with our inboxes. Instead of every message landing in one long stream, Inbox automatically grouped emails into “Bundles” (Travel, Purchases, Updates, etc.), surfaced key bits of content from messages (flight info, package tracking, event details), and offered tools like reminders and “snooze” that let you defer messages until later.
Google shuttered Inbox in 2019, saying in its blog post that many of its popular innovations had been absorbed into the main Gmail app. Gmail now includes snoozing, smarter notifications, nudges, and more — all ideas that Inbox helped pioneer. However, some of the experimental polish remains missing, such as the streamlined flow, the way Inbox lets you glance over the essentials without digging, and the sense that email could be organized for you rather than by you.
Picasa
The photo app that made organizing fun
Before Google Photos became popular, there was Picasa, a desktop photo management and editing tool that Google acquired in 2004. Picasa lets you organize photos offline, apply quick edits, and share them through its Web Albums service.
In 2016, Google retired the Picasa desktop application and later Picasa Web Albums in order to focus on Google Photos, a cloud-first, cross-platform service. Google Photos is powerful and adds many features Picasa lacked, especially mobile access, syncing, smart search, and machine learning. In that sense, it serves as a strong replacement, even if it represents a very different approach.
Google+
The social network that never really worked
Google once set out to challenge Facebook. The result was Google+, which introduced features such as Circles for sharing with specific groups, Hangouts for group video chats, Sparks for interest-based content, and integration with other Google products.
Despite that ambition, Google+ struggled to sustain high engagement. I used it myself because Google tied parts of its identity system to other services, including YouTube comments and profiles, but many people only tried it occasionally. While certain communities around photography, technology, and other interests thrived, they never managed to turn the platform into a true mainstream alternative.
Security issues added to its problems. In late 2018, Google disclosed a bug in the Google+ API that exposed the private profile data of tens of millions of users. That incident accelerated the timeline for its shutdown, which had been planned for later in 2019 but was brought forward to April.
Allo
The chat app that came before Messages
Messaging has long been a messy space for Google, and Allo became one of its shorter-lived experiments. Launched in 2016, Allo was Google’s bid to compete with WhatsApp, Facebook, and iMessage-style apps. It introduced clever features like Google Assistant built directly into chats (so you could type “@google” for restaurant suggestions or quick answers), machine-learning-driven Smart Reply, playful stickers and text effects, and an Incognito mode with optional end-to-end encryption.
Despite the innovation, Allo never gained widespread adoption. Most people were already invested in existing messaging ecosystems, and Google’s own strategy was fragmented — it ran Allo alongside Hangouts, Duo, and Android Messages.
In 2019, the company shut down Allo, encouraged users to export their chats, and shifted its attention to Android Messages and the rollout of RCS (Rich Communication Services) as the future of SMS.
Google Podcasts
Another good idea rolled into something else
Podcasts have really taken off over the past decade, and Google decided to jump into the mix with Google Podcasts back in 2018. The app was clean, free, neatly tied into Android and Google Search, and did the job without drowning you in the chaos that comes with bigger platforms like Spotify.
Then came the bad news. In September 2023, Google announced that the app would be retired in 2024, with everything shifting over to YouTube Music. The plug was officially pulled in the U.S. on April 2, 2024, and the rest of the world followed on June 24. To soften the blow, Google offered a way to export podcast subscriptions to YouTube Music. Even so, I was really disappointed at that decision, especially because I liked having a dedicated app rather than mixing podcasts into a broader music platform.
A legacy of experiments that didn’t stick
When you look back at these apps, there’s a pretty clear pattern. Google is never shy about trying new ideas, and sometimes those experiments end up shaping something better later on. Inbox, for example, pushed Gmail to become what it is today. Picasa set the stage for Google Photos. Play Music paved the way for YouTube Music to run.
But there’s another side to all this constant tinkering. Every shutdown chips away at people’s trust. You start second-guessing whether it’s worth getting attached to a new Google app, knowing it might vanish a few years down the line. And really, sometimes, the replacements never quite live up to what came before.
