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Google will be deleting inactive google accounts together with all data on them starting December 1, 2023 (support.google.com)

submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

42 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.fmhy.ml/post/545658

Inactive Google Account Policy

A Google Account gives you Google-wide access to most Google products, such as Google Ads, Gmail, and YouTube, using the same username and password.

An inactive Google Account is an account that has not been used within a 2-year period. Google reserves the right to delete an inactive Google Account and its activity and data if you are inactive across Google for at least two years.

Google also reserves the right to delete data in a product if you are inactive in that product for at least two years. This is determined based on each product's inactivity policies.

How Google defines activity

A Google Account that is in use is considered active. Activity might include these actions you take when you sign in or while you’re signed in to your Google Account:

Reading or sending an email

Using Google Drive

Watching a YouTube video

Sharing a photo

Downloading an app

Using Google Search

Using Sign in with Google to sign in to a third-party app or service

Google Account activity is demonstrated by account and not by device. You can take actions on any surface where you’re signed in to your Google Account, for example, on your phone.

If you have more than one Google Account set up on your device, you’ll want to make sure each account is used within a 2-year period.

What happens when your Google Account is inactive

When your Google Account has not been used within a 2-year period, your Google Account, that is then deemed inactive, and all of its content and data may be deleted. Before this happens, Google will give you an opportunity to take an action in your account by:

Sending email notifications to your Google Account

Sending notifications to your recovery email, if any exists

Google products reserve the right to delete your data when your account has not been used within that product for a 2-year period.

December 1, 2023 is the earliest a Google Account will be deleted due to this policy.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I know this sounds dumb probably but 2 years is too short a time.

No no, I'm of the same opinion

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Can I ask why you think that's too short? It seems like a long time for no activity on an account. And they are fairly generous about defining activity.

This seems reasonable to me.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I have a couple accounts I use as usernames to log into stuff, but I couldn't tell you if I've actually logged in to those email addresses in the last two years.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

If you're using those accounts to sign into things, that appears to be listed as activity.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Even if it's just as a username? How would Google even know about that?

I'm not saying "sign in with Google" sign ins. Just that I use that email address as a username in a couple places

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Hmm I see what you mean, yeah the only use for that email would be to get a lost password associated with that username then, it wouldn't actually get activated.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Someone in jail for a two year stint that ends in December may be emerging to find the email they had for twenty years, which may be the key to most of their other accounts, is gone, which could be hugely impactful.

In my personal life, I do now have the unfortunate task of reminding people to log into dead relative's email accounts so they can preserve some shit they need, which kind of sucks.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The jail one seems a little "edge case" but the dead relative one is interesting. I think Google's "takeout" would help with that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

How do we define edge case? Incarceration is a fact of life, and in the US we have somewhere around one in a hundred Americans jailed. It's not an insubstantial sum of people, and like military deployments, is something that should be accounted for when looking at scenarios where someone might be away from their computer for a sum of time.