Summary

  • Google will shut down its free dark-web monitoring on January 15th, 2026. Report access ends February 16th, 2026.
  • The tool only alerted you to leaked data but lacked clear, actionable next steps, so Google is discontinuing it.
  • Google recommends switching to Security Checkup, using a password manager, or taking advantage of Password Checkup.

Google's free dark web tool, which notifies you if your personal information has appeared on the internet's seedy underbelly, is going away early next year.

After launching roughly a year and a half ago, the tool was previously only available to Google One subscribers, but in mid-2024, the tech giant opened it up to everyone. Turning it on sends you a notification if your name, phone number, address, social security number or email address, has leaked on the internet in a data breach. In an announcement about the platform closing, Google says that it's ditching the tool because "feedback showed that it did not provide helpful next steps."

This is actually a very accurate statement on the tech giant's part. Google's dark web tool only lets you know that your data has been leaked, but doesn't tell you what you can do about it, whether the course of action should be that the compromised account needs to be closed entirely, the password should be changed, or that further, more serious action needs to be taken.

Google still offers several useful security tools

It's unclear if a more actionable version of dark web monitoring will return

Moving forward, Google says that it plans to focus on releasing tools that offer clear steps users can take to better protect themselves, and recommends its other tools like "Security Checkup," which reviews your Google accounts security, using its built-in password manager to generate unique passwords, and "Password Checkup," which sends you alerts when your saved passwords have been compromised.

In its Help Center update, Google wrote the following about the tool's closure:

"While the report offered general information, feedback showed that it didn't provide helpful next steps. We're making this change to instead focus on tools that give you more clear, actionable steps to protect your information online. We'll continue to track and defend you from online threats, including the dark web, and build tools that help protect you and your personal information."

Google's dark web monitoring will officially shut down on January 15th, 2026, with report access being closed on February 16th, 2026 and all data being deleted. If you want to get ahead of the closure and remove your monitoring profile now, you can do that now by navigating to the Results With Your Info section on the tools official page.