Google announced in December that it would delete accounts that had been inactive for two years in order to prevent security threats such as hacks.
Google inactive accounts
If an account is not used or signed into for at least two years, the company may delete the account and content across Workspace, which includes Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet, and Calendar, as well as YouTube and G-Photos.
The policy change only affects personal Google Accounts, not those used by organizations such as schools or businesses.
It stated in 2020 that it would remove content from inactive accounts but would not delete the accounts themselves.
Beginning Tuesday, Google will send multiple notifications to inactive accounts’ account email addresses and recovery mail before deleting them.
The new policy is effective immediately, but Google has stated that it will not begin deleting accounts until December. The company intends to send multiple warning notifications to users and to purge inactive accounts in stages.
According to company, the first accounts to be deleted will be those that were created but never visited by the user.
The policy will also only apply to personal accounts, leaving organizations such as schools and businesses unaffected.
It stated that its decision is based on internal findings that older accounts are more likely to use recycled passwords and are less likely to use up-to-date security measures such as two-step verification, making them far more vulnerable to phishing, hacking, and spam.
The decision to delete accounts goes beyond an earlier policy. In 2020, stated that users’ content would be removed from services they no longer used, but their accounts would not be deleted.
Elon Musk announced last week that Twitter would remove and archive accounts that have been inactive for several years, stating that the action is “important to free up abandoned handles.”
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