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Two dates matter. On October 13, 2026 Gems became read-only — you can no longer create or edit them. On November 17, 2026 the feature is removed. Between those dates you can still export, but the window for editing your instructions has already closed. This page is the schedule, in order, with what each stage costs you if you skip it.
Today is October 14. The editing phase is already over. What remains is export, convert, validate, and enable.
Do the export first and do it now — it is the only step that depends on something outside your control. Everything after it is your own work and cannot be taken away.
| Date | What changes | Can you still fix it later |
|---|---|---|
| October 13, 2026 | Gems can no longer be created or edited. Existing Gems remain readable. | No. This stage is closed. You can no longer fix a Gem's instructions. |
| Now until November 16 | Everything open. Export, copy text, build skills, test them. | Yes, but this is the only wide window you get. |
| November 17, 2026 | Gems are removed. Automatic conversion to Skills runs. | No documented restore path afterwards. |
The most common misreading is that October 13 to November 17 is a comfortable window. It is not, because the things you might want to change in your Gems are already unchangeable. If a Gem's instructions need work, that option expired yesterday.
This window offered the ability to tidy instructions while editing was still possible. It has passed. If you never used it, the loss is concrete: instructions you would have polished are now fixed as they were, and the only remedy is rewriting them from scratch as skills.
| What you lost | Can you recover it |
|---|---|
| Tidying a Gem's wording | Yes, but only by rewriting the skill body yourself |
| Fixing a Gem's name before conversion | Yes, the name is preserved and editable in the skill file |
| Adding instructions you forgot to include | Yes, if you remember them. Not if you forgot they were missing. |
| Consolidating several Gems into one skill | Yes, but you must do it by hand |
None of this is fatal. It just means more manual work, which is why the remaining phase is worth starting rather than scheduling.
This is your window. It is wide open and nothing is being taken away from you during it, but the volume of work scales with how many Gems you have.
Every Gem, including ones you forgot about. This is the only step that depends on something you do not control.
One Gem, one folder. About five minutes each once you have done the first one.
Catches the folder-name mismatch, which uploads fine and never runs.
Uploads arrive disabled. Test with a real prompt, not "hello".
Separate systems. They do not sync.
The full mechanics are on the backup checklist and the conversion guide. The upload step is on how to upload.
Google converts Gems automatically. Understanding exactly what that does prevents a bad surprise.
| What happens | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| Gems are converted to Skills | Your name, description, instructions, and uploaded knowledge files are carried over |
| Each migrated skill arrives disabled | Nothing runs until you enable it, one by one |
| Five capabilities do not convert | Canvas, Deep Research, video, music, Guided Learning |
| Labs Gems have no conversion path | Switched off with nothing rebuilt |
| The Gems interface is gone | No going back to compare against the original |
Automatic conversion is not a backup. It produces a set of disabled drafts with known gaps and no way to check them against an original you no longer have. If you have your own exports, the migration is a convenience. If you do not, it is the only copy and you cannot verify it.
The migration risks page covers each of the five unsupported capabilities in detail.
Your skills keep working. They are files in your folders with no end date. What is genuinely gone is the ability to see a Gem again and compare.
| Task | Still possible |
|---|---|
| Run your skills | Yes, indefinitely |
| Edit a skill's instructions | Yes, it is a text file |
| Add new skills | Yes |
| See what a Gem originally said | Only if you kept the export |
| Rebuild a Canvas or Deep Research Gem | Only from the export, with a different approach |
| Gems | Export only | Export, convert, validate | With upload and testing |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 minutes | 10 minutes | 20 minutes |
| 3 | 6 minutes | 30 minutes | 1 hour |
| 5 | 10 minutes | 50 minutes | 1 hour 40 minutes |
| 10 | 20 minutes | 1 hour 40 minutes | 3 hours |
| 20 | 40 minutes | 3 to 4 hours | 6 to 7 hours |
These are deliberately generous. The per-Gem time drops sharply after the first one, because the folder structure and the frontmatter shape become routine.
If you only do one thing today, export. Conversion can be redone from an export at any point. An export that was never made cannot be reconstructed from memory, and the memory is the thing the shutdown takes away.
| Misunderstanding | Reality |
|---|---|
| "November 17 is the deadline, I have until then" | True for exporting, false for editing. Editing closed on October 13. |
| "Google converts them, so there is nothing to do" | They arrive disabled, five capabilities are dropped, and Labs Gems convert to nothing. Plan around it. |
| "I can come back to the Gems afterwards if I need to" | There is no documented restore path. Keep the export. |
| "Skills will be gone too, since they came from Gems" | No. Skills are your files and are unaffected. |
Your Gems are converted automatically into disabled skills. Instructions and knowledge files are carried over. Canvas, Deep Research, video, music, and Guided Learning behaviour is lost, and Labs Gems produce nothing. You will have a list of disabled drafts and no original to compare against.
No. Skills are independent of the Gems shutdown. This is the main reason converting is worth the effort rather than waiting.
It produces something, but something with known gaps that arrives switched off. If your Gems are throwaway experiments, that may be acceptable. If any of them held work you use, prepare your own copy.
There is no documented export path once the Gems interface is removed. Treat the export window as closing on the date, not as something you can do later.
Google has not published a time. This is a practical reason to finish before the date rather than watching for it — you cannot test a migrated skill on the 17th and still have a Gem to compare it against.
Ten minutes covers it. The checklist is short because most Gems are plain instructions with nothing that does not convert. The ten percent that are not worth identifying early is the reason to look at all of them.