Google Reveals Plans to Remove Inactive Accounts

Google LLC said on Tuesday this week that it will remove all accounts that have not been accessed for two years and more. The tech company owned by Alphabet Inc. revealed that starting December 2023, it will start deleting inactive accounts.

Google explained that this move is also part of its efforts to prevent security threats such as hacking incidents. The Mountainview, California-headquartered firm said that if a user has not signed in or logged in to his or her Google account for at least two years, it could be taken down.

As the account is deleted, the content in the account’s Google Workspace, including Gmail, Drive, Docs, Google Meet, and Calendar, will all be erased as well. The Google Photos and YouTube linked to the unused account will be affected too.

As per Reuters, the company mentioned that this change in policy only applies to personal Google Accounts. This means that those belonging to organizations such as educational institutions and businesses are exempted for now.

It was noted that Google already mentioned in 2020 that it will remove the content in inactive accounts, but this time, the company is deleting the main account itself so the user will no longer have anything to return to in case he or she decided to open the account again at some point.

To warn the users about this step, Google will be sending out notifications starting this week. It will also send recovery mail for the unused accounts before the actual deletion is carried out. With this, users are advised to log in now or lose their accounts forever.

Finally, CNN Business reported that the updated policy of the tech firm is effective immediately, even if the account removal is actually starting seven months from now.

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