Search giant Google announced in May this year that it has updated its inactivity policy for Google Accounts. If a Google account has not been used or signed into for at least 2 years, the company will delete it and all its contents in December 2023—this includes Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet, Calendar and Google Photos.
The company did clarify that this policy only applies to personal Google Accounts. Google justifies its new policy, saying that accounts that have not been used for an extended period of time are more likely to get compromised.
“This is because forgotten or unattended accounts often rely on old or re-used passwords that may have been compromised, haven’t had two-factor authentication set up, and receive fewer security checks by the user. Our internal analysis shows abandoned accounts are at least 10x less likely than active accounts to have 2-step-verification set up,” wrote Ruth Kricheli, VP of Product Management at Google, in a blog post earlier this year.
The company will be taking a phased approach to the deletions by starting with accounts that were created and then never used again. It says that it will send multiple notifications over the months leading up to deletion. These notifications will both be sent to the unused account and more importantly, to a recovery email if it has been provided.
There is one easy way to keep a Google Account active—sign in at least once every two years. This means that if you have signed into your Google Account or into any other service using the same account, yours will be considered active and will not be deleted.
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