Google is in the process of deleting a large number of Gmail accounts. Do these steps to avoid losing your account.
The internet giant last December began deleting accounts that had not been used for two years. update of this Inactive account policies in May.
Any Google account that Content that's been used or signed in to for at least two years can now be deleted, including content from Google Workspace — Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet, and Calendar — and Google Photos.
Google said it would do so in a phased manner, starting with accounts that were created but never used again.
Google will send the user several notifications in the months prior to deleting the account, to the account email and also to a recovery email if available.
“The simplest way to keep a Google Account active is to sign in at least once every two years,” Ruth Critchley, Google's vice president of product management, said in a Safety and Security blog post. “If you've recently signed in to your Google Account or any of our services, your account will be considered active and will not be deleted.”
Activity can include a variety of actions taken while signed in or using a Google account, such as reading or sending an email, using Google Drive, watching YouTube videos, downloading an app from the Google Play Store, using Google Search, or using Sign in with Google to sign in to a third-party app or service.
If the user has an existing subscription through their Google account, such as Google One cloud storage, news publications or an app, Google also considers the activity on this account and it will not be impacted.
However, users will need to specifically log into Google Photos every two years to prevent their photos and other content from being deleted.
“Additionally, at this time we have no plans to remove accounts that contain YouTube videos,” Ms. Critchley said.
This policy only applies to personal Google Accounts, and does not affect accounts of organizations such as schools or businesses.
Google said that this change has been made to reduce the security risks associated with account hacking, because accounts which have not been used for a long time are more likely to be hacked.
“This is because forgotten or overlooked accounts often rely on old or reused passwords that may have been compromised, do not have two-factor authentication set up, and have fewer security checks performed by the user,” Ms Critchley said.
“Our internal analysis shows that abandoned accounts are at least 10 times less likely to have two-step verification set up than active accounts. This means these accounts are often unsecured, and once an account is hacked, it can be used for anything from identity theft to sending unwanted or even malicious content, such as spam.”
More than 1.8 billion people worldwide use Gmail, making it the second most popular email provider after Apple.
The service first launched in 2004 with one gigabyte of storage, which was a huge amount for the time.
“This update brings our policy into line with industry standards regarding retention and account deletion and also limits the length of time Google retains your unused personal information,” Ms. Critchley said.
“We’re going to implement this slowly and carefully, with ample notice.”
