Google Voice Added to Google Takeout

Google Takeout, Google’s archival tool that allows users download their data from many Google services such as Buzz, Picasa, and Google+. Now, Google Voice added to Google Takeout, users of search giant’s “Google Voice” telecommunications service can now export their data such as texts voice mails and phone numbers.

The move means that all of the data associated with Google Voice account includes call history, voicemail messages, greetings and call recordings, is now available for download. The search giant believes its users should be able to export any data that they create in or import into Google products. Google has created the Google Takeout service to make this process as easy as possible.

Currently, Google Takeout already enables users to download most information that users have entered into the service, including a user’s Google Profile; photos that users have uploaded onto Picasa; information that users have entered into the Google+ Stream, including Circles; contacts; and the “+1″ tags that users click. If users still use Google Buzz, that information can also be downloaded.

Anthony Jawad, Google software engineer said that Google Voice is the latest product available for Google Takeout, which means that all of the data associated with users’ Google Voice account, from their call history to voicemail messages, greetings and call recordings, is now available for download. Voicemail messages and greetings are exported as MP3s, text messages as microformatted HTML, and forwarding phone numbers as a Vcard, “all of the data” associated with Google Voice is now associated with Google Takeout.

In fact, Google Takeout does have some limitations: the service doesn’t currently appear to allow users to export data that its mobile applications save about your location, including checkins at Google Places or Google Offers that a user might either have searched for or purchased. The Google Operating System blog also reports that only the first 100 pictures within any Picasa photo album can be downloaded, and not the whole thing.

In 2007, the search giant build a team of engineers called the Data Liberation Front, tasking it with adding export capabilities to a variety of Google products. Google Docs got the treatment in 2009, and in July 2011 the Google+ social network was added to the new Google Takeout project, which enables users export data from a variety of Google services at once, rather than having to do it separately. In addition, Google Voice service, which allows users to transfer their real-world phone number to Google’s services, is available in the US but not in the UK. However, in August Google said it was bringing some Google Voice functionality across the pond, allowing Gmail users in the UK make paid-for calls to landlines and mobile phones from the web-based email client.