Gemini Gems go read-only on 17 November: move them to skills and share them with your team

Who is affected, and when

Google's help page sets the dates by the account you sign in to Gemini with (read 5 November 2026, 13:48 JST):

Read-only, in Google's words: "You can still access your Gems, but can't use or edit them, or create new ones." So until 17 December you can still open a Gem to copy its instructions or download its files. Opal and Gems by Google Labs go away in November too.

On a work or school account, nothing changes yet, and skills aren't there yet either: Google says it will "soon expand availability to work and school accounts". Keep using your Gems and plan the move for your month.

Move a Gem to a skill, step by step

Google recreates your Gems as skills on 17 November without you doing anything. Doing it yourself first lets you check each one, fix its description and save its files while the Gem still works. These are Google's steps, on a computer at gemini.google.com. Skills need you to be 18 or over, signed in, with Keep Activity turned on.

Step 1: Save the Gem's knowledge files

1. Click Open sidebar, then Gems. If you don't see Gems, click More first.
2. Next to the Gem, click Edit.
3. Under Knowledge, open each file and click Download.
4. Make a folder named like the skill: all lowercase, with hyphens between words, such as reply-to-tenants. Move the files into it, and keep the Gem's tab open.

Step 2: Create the skill

1. In a new tab, open gemini.google.com and click Customize, then Skills. If you don't see Customize, click More first.
2. Click Create, then Create manually.
3. Copy the Gem's name, description and instructions into the skill. The name changes to the right format by itself.
4. Click Create. If the Gem had no files, you're done.

Step 3: Add the files

1. On the Skills page, next to the new skill, click More options, then Download. You get a .zip with a SKILL.md inside.
2. Open the .zip and move the SKILL.md into the folder with the Gem's files.
3. Back on the Skills page, next to the same skill, click More options, then Replace skill. In the upload area, click folder and pick the folder. Its name must match the skill's name.
4. Click Upload, then Upload.

To test it, open a new chat and type / and the skill's name, or ask for the task in your own words. Gemini uses a skill that's turned on when your request matches its description.

Rewrite the description: it decides when the skill runs

A Gem's description was a label you read in your list of Gems. A skill's description is what Gemini reads to decide whether to use it: Google says Gemini "only checks the skill's name and description". Its advice is one or two sentences in the third person, saying what the skill does and then "Use when…", within 1,024 characters. A Gem moved as it is keeps its old label, and Google warns that with a generic description "Gemini might not use the skill when it's needed."

To get the SKILL.md without retyping, paste the Gem into the free Gemini Gem to skill converter. It writes the name and a description that ends in "Use when…", lists the knowledge files for you to add, and runs in your browser.

Example: three Gems in a small letting office

Illustration: a made-up business. Northgate Lettings is a five-person letting office on personal Google accounts. The office manager, Mina, has three Gems: replies to tenants, which two colleagues use as viewers; listing copy, with a style guide saved as a .doc file; and a check for repair quotes. This week she:

1. Downloads the knowledge files, and saves the style guide again as .docx, because .doc files don't carry over.
2. Recreates each Gem as a skill with the three steps above.
3. Rewrites the descriptions. The tenant Gem's said only "Helps answer tenant emails." She has her AI rewrite the Gem's name, description and instructions with the library's Turn a prompt into a skill, and puts what it returns into the new skill.
4. Downloads each skill's .zip and keeps all three in the office's shared drive.
5. Gives the team one copy. The colleague who works in Claude gets the same reply rules from the team's pod, and the two who stay in Gemini upload the same SKILL.md as their own skill, since Gemini can't share skills yet.

The tenant skill her AI wrote starts like this:

---
name: reply-to-tenants
description: Drafts replies to tenant emails about repairs, rent and move-outs in Northgate's plain, polite style, with the next step and a date. Use when a tenant's email needs an answer.
---

# Reply to tenants

Answer the tenant's question first, in plain words. Then give one next step: who does it, and by when.

Her test: in a new Gemini chat, "a tenant says the boiler is broken again, write a reply" should bring in the reply-to-tenants skill without her picking it.

Files that won't carry over

A skill holds up to 100 MB of files. When Google moves a larger Gem, it drops the largest files first until the skill fits. These types don't move at all:

• Older Office files: .doc, .xls and .ppt. Skills take .docx, .xlsx and .pptx, so save them again in those.
• Audio and video files.
• Archives: .zip, .tar, .7z, .rar, .gz and .tgz.
• GitHub files.

On a personal account you can download a Gem's files until 17 December. After the move, open the Gem and its new skill side by side, and download whatever didn't transfer.

Keep a copy of every skill as SKILL.md

Google's transition page describes no export for a Gem itself. The file you can keep comes from the skill, whether you made it or Google's move did:

1. At gemini.google.com, click Customize, then Skills.
2. Hover over the skill, click More, then Download.
3. Keep the .zip outside Gemini, in a folder you back up or your team can reach.

The .zip holds the skill's SKILL.md, the file that carries its name, description and instructions. Files the skill takes from Google Drive, and notebooks, are left out of the download. Uploading a SKILL.md to make a skill works only in the Gemini web app and the Mac app for now.

What changes for a team

A Gem was always one person's. It lived in the account that made it, and sharing it sent people a link to that copy, as viewers or editors. An editor could change or delete it for everyone, on work accounts the admin's Drive settings decided whether it could be shared at all, and it ran only in Gemini.

Skills don't change that yet. Google says sharing skills with others arrives "in the coming weeks", and its help doesn't say what happens to Gems other people shared with you. If your team relies on someone's shared Gem, ask its owner for the instructions or the skill's .zip before 17 November.

What does change is the file. Google's help says you can import "skills you created on other platforms by uploading their SKILL.md files". SKILL.md is the heart of Agent Skills, the format Anthropic released as an open standard at agentskills.io, and Anthropic's help says "the same skill format works across AI platforms and tools that adopt the standard". The standard's client list includes Claude, Claude Code, ChatGPT and Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot and Gemini CLI. It doesn't list the Gemini app, but Gemini takes the same file. So a team can keep one copy of each skill and use it in every tool, instead of one Gem per person.

One limit differs. Gemini allows a description of up to 1,024 characters, and a skill uploaded to claude.ai allows 200. Keep it under 200 and the same file works in both.

Where AI Skill Pod fits

AI Skill Pod holds that one copy for a team. You add the skill once, and everyone uses it from the AI they already have:

Moving your Gems is free. The Free plan costs $0 for up to 3 people and 10 skills, and no card is needed. After the 14-day trial, your team stays on Free unless you buy Team or Business.

1. Bring the facts in first. The pod keeps the SKILL.md's text, not the files next to it. Paste what the Gem's knowledge files told it into the instructions.
2. Import the file. In the app, click Add a skill, then under Move from a GPT or a file, choose the SKILL.md (or the .zip, up to 2 MB) and click Read the file. Check the name and description it filled in, then click Save for the team.
3. Everyone connects their AI once. Each member adds the pod in Claude, ChatGPT (Pro, Business or Enterprise; on Business an admin or owner adds it), Claude Code, Codex or Cursor, and their AI reads the same copy. When someone improves the skill, everyone gets the new version, and each save is kept as a version with who made it.

Gemini isn't on that list: AI Skill Pod's Connect your AI steps don't cover the Gemini app or Gemini CLI. For teammates who stay in Gemini, download the current SKILL.md from the skill's page in the pod and upload it in Gemini (Create, then Upload). That copy doesn't update itself, so upload it again after a change.

Next step: keep everyone on the same version

Once your team has the files, the question is how to stop each person's copy drifting. Stop skill version drift compares sending ZIP files with keeping one shared copy.

Questions

Will my Gems be deleted?

On a personal Google account, yes: Google removes Gems from Gemini on 17 December 2026. On 17 November it turns each Gem into a skill and makes the Gem read-only, so the skill is what you keep. Files of unsupported types don't move, and neither do the largest files of a Gem over 100 MB; download them before 17 December.

Do work accounts change now?

No. Google Workspace business, enterprise and non-profit accounts move in March 2027, and education accounts in June 2027. Skills aren't on work and school accounts yet either; Google says they're coming "soon".

Can I use a Gem in Claude?

Not the Gem, but its skill, yes. Recreate the Gem as a skill in Gemini and download it. Put the SKILL.md in a folder named after the skill, zip the folder, and upload it in Claude under Customize > Skills > Upload a skill. Keep the description under 200 characters, Claude's limit for an uploaded skill.

Can I share skills with my team?

Not inside Gemini yet: Google says sharing skills arrives in the coming weeks. You can send each person the SKILL.md to upload, but every copy then changes on its own. Or put the skill in an AI Skill Pod, where your team's Claude, ChatGPT (Pro, Business or Enterprise), Claude Code, Codex and Cursor read one shared copy, and teammates on Gemini upload its SKILL.md.

What happens to Gems someone shared with me?

Google's help doesn't say. If you depend on one, ask its owner before 17 November for the Gem's instructions or the skill's download.