Google may delete your account and all the data saved in it to keep you ‘safe’. Google has announced that it is updating the inactivity policy for Google Accounts to 2 years. This means, Google may delete your account and contents, including content within Google Workspace (Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet, Calendar), YouTube and Google Photos, if your Google Account has not been used or signed in for at least 2 years. The company has clarified that it will begin to delete inactive accounts from December 2023. The brand will take a phased approach, starting with accounts that were created and never used again. Before deleting an account, we will send multiple notifications over the months leading up to deletion, to both the account email address and the recovery email.
The company is calling this move a safety practice as 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. As per the company, abandoned accounts are at least 10x less likely than active accounts to have 2-step-verification set up. .
Meaning, these accounts are often vulnerable, and once an account is compromised, it can be used for anything from identity theft to a vector for unwanted or even malicious content, like spam.
The simplest way to keep a Google Account active is to sign-in at least once every 2 years. If you have signed into your Google Account or any of our services recently, your account is considered active and will not be deleted.