Last week, Google was synonymous with “happiness” for many users. The company announced a multitude of updates at Google I/O 2023, including the release date (and price) of Pixel Fold, the end of the waitlist for Bard, and the announcement of Google PaLM 2. However, the company has now made a decision that has not been well-received by users.
Google has updated its policy on inactivity this week, stating that inactive user accounts will be automatically deleted by the end of the year. The measure aims to save space on Google servers and will not include accounts that have uploaded videos to YouTube or accounts for business or educational purposes.
The company specifies that it will proceed to delete personal accounts and their content “if a Google account has not been used or logged into for at least 2 years.” This new measure not only results in the loss of access to the Google account, but also leads to the deletion of Gmail messages, Calendar events, Drive files, Docs, and other workspace content, as well as Google Photos backups.
In December 2023, Google will begin gradually deleting inactive accounts, starting with “accounts that were created but never used.” However, the company assures that it will notify users in the months leading up to the potential deletion, sending notifications to both the account’s email address and the recovery email address.
Google has also specified the actions that keep an account active. So, if you want to prevent the deletion of an account that you haven’t used in a while, make sure to do at least one of the following:
- Read or send an email.
- Use Google Drive.
- Watch a YouTube video.
- Download an app from the Google Play Store.
- Use Google search.
- Use Google Sign-In to access a third-party application or service.
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