As announced, starting December 1st, Google will delete inactive accounts and all their content, such as photos, emails, contacts, and documents, from Drive.
System-wide cleaning aims to protect users from security threats, such as spam and phishing scams.
Why does Google delete inactive accounts?
Google deletes inactive accounts from its system because it says they are “more likely to be compromised.” Unsupervised accounts often rely on old or reused passwords, have fewer security checks, and are ten times more likely to not have two-factor authentication set up.
When an account is compromised, it can be used for anything from identity theft to unwanted or malicious content, such as spam, the company noted.
When will the accounts be deleted?
Google will begin terminating inactive accounts on December 1, 2023, according to a company announcement. It will start by eliminating accounts that users have created and then never visited again.
Which Google accounts are deleted?
According to Google’s new rules, if a Google Account has not been used for at least two years, the account and its content, including content within Google Workspace, can be deleted. However, the new rules only apply to personal Google accounts, meaning they don’t affect school or work accounts.
Additionally, Google will not remove accounts that have uploaded YouTube videos or have active subscriptions to apps or news services. Affected users will receive multiple notifications that their accounts will be terminated before this actually happens.
How to secure your account?
To make sure that your Google account remains active, log in to your account and use one of the company’s tools such as Gmail, Google Drive, Google Photos and Google Play
