Newsletter
Accumulating accounts is a reality for most people. Over the course of a couple of years, some people will make different accounts for specific reasons and abandon them. This is something that Google acknowledges and is taking action against. According to 9To5Google, Google will delete Gmail accounts that have been inactive for 2 years.
It’s easy to rack up a large number of Google accounts. Sometimes you need to make an email address for a business or maybe you want to create a YouTube channel. The thing is that it could be difficult to keep track of all the accounts that you make. So, it’s common for people to have several accounts just sitting and gathering dust.
Google will delete and active Gmail accounts
By inactive, Google means that you haven’t logged into it in a solid two years. So, if you’ve logged in at all in the past 2 years, then you won’t need to worry. It doesn’t matter if you’re not actively using it as your main email account.
If you’re worried about losing your precious data, you can rest assured for several reasons. Firstly, Google’s not going to start deleting emails until December of this year. In the meantime, the company will send constant notifications in the months leading up to the deletion. It’ll send notifications to the main email address and the recovery email address if one has been assigned.
Also, in order for an account to be considered inactive, you really have to abandon it completely. If you use a device signed into that account, that counts as activity. It also applies to downloading an app using that phone, watching a YouTube video on that account, reading emails, using Google Drive, using search, Etc.
What gets deleted?
Pretty much everything. Google will not stop at deleting emails. The company will delete everything from emails to Google Drive files to photos and videos. The company did say that it will not delete YouTube videos, however.
This is all a move to help with security. Older Google accounts are likely to have reused passwords, and they’re unlikely to use two-factor authentication. This makes them much easier to be infiltrated. Deleting the data associated with those accounts means that Google will have less of your data that’s vulnerable to being stolen.
One thing to note is that, while the accounts are being deleted, Google will not let people repurpose the email addresses associated with them. If you want to retain your old Google accounts, it’s important to sign in now and figure out what you want to do with them.