Google decides to get rid of the burden of inactive user accounts. The company will begin deleting them from December 2023, after two years of inactivity.
Google also cancels user accounts in certain specific circumstances. We have already seen that when the space in the Google account runs out and the user does not purchase or renew a Google One subscription for a period of 2 consecutive years, the Mountain View company could delete its data. Consider situations where an account was part of a Google One plan and then removed from the same plan.
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Now Google has announced that it has updated the rules for deleting user accounts that remain inactive for a long time. The Mountain View company explains that starting from December 2023, accounts that have remained unused for two years in a row can be removed “ex officio”.
The policy only applies to personal Google Accounts and doesn’t affect accounts of organizations like schools and businesses. However, the company led by Sundar Pichai has confirmed that in the case of personal accounts to which the user has no longer accessed in the last two years, Google will delete Gmail, Documents, Drive, Meet, Calendar, YouTube, and Photos data.
Before deleting an account, Google will send multiple notifications in the months leading up to the deletion, both to the account email address and to the recovery email, of course in cases where one was indicated. Also, the deletion will happen gradually starting with those Google accounts that have been created but then never used.
How to keep a Google account and prevent it from being deleted
It may happen that a user has registered a Google account, has used it for a certain period of time saving a fair amount of personal data, and then has no longer accessed it.
In these cases, to avoid automatic deletion by Google, just log in and then do one of the following: read or send an email, use Google Drive, watch a video on YouTube, download an app from the Play Store, use the Google search engine, use the Sign in with Google option to sign in to a third-party app or service with your Google Account.
Google notes that forgotten or unattended accounts often rely on old or reused passwords that may have been compromised, don’t use two-step verification, and can be more easily cracked. Hence the company’s decision to “crackdown” on user accounts that have been unused for 2 years or more. Although Google does not explicitly point it out, there is a good chance that the company has made this decision also to free itself from the burden of now-forgotten accounts that uselessly take up space on cloud servers.
