Roll Back To The Classic Google+ UI

As those who use Google+ at all may have recently seen, Google recently updated Google+’s user interface (UI) to a design that complies with their Material Design guidelines.

Unfortunately, that meant some features didn’t stay inside of Google+. Recently, I myself have found it very difficult, if not impossible, to create a post that is only visible to a particular person on Google+.

While this method won’t permanently rollback Google+ to the classic interface (as navigating back to Google+ in any other browser window or tab will bring up the new Material Design UI), it will rollback that particular Google+ session to the classic interface.

To do this:

  1. On the menu on the left-hand side, click Settings.
  2. In the General section, you will see an entry for seetings that you cannot find, with a link to view the classic Google+ interface.
  3. Click the link to go to the classic interface. It will then reload the Settings window, but in the classic interface.
  4. At this point, to go back to your Google+ feed but to maintain the interface, do NOT click the Google+ logo in the top left corner! That will go back to the Material Design UI! To get back to your feed and maintain the classic interface, click “Home” in the left-hand menu.
  5. And voila! Google+, in the classic interface! For now, at least.

Google+ Settings

Figure 1: The Google+ Settings page

As with all Google products and services, there is no way to predict how long this workaround will exist for. But for now, this is at least one way to get back to all the functionality that you need in Google+.