Google Plans to Delete Inactive Accounts Forever: Include Gmail

VIVA – Google has announced on Tuesday, it will start deleting accounts that have been inactive since 2021. This aims to prevent security risks. 

This will include Gmail, Drive, and Photos accounts that have not been used or signed in for at least two years.

In a blog post announcing the update, Google stated the new policy was primarily for security reasons, where old accounts are typically more vulnerable to threats like spam, phishing scams, and hijacking.

"Our internal analysis shows that abandoned accounts are at least 10x less likely than active accounts to set up 2-step verification," the post said. 

This means that these accounts are often vulnerable and once an account is compromised, it can be used for anything from identity theft to vectors of unwanted or even malicious content, such as spam.

The policy will only apply to personal accounts. While those associated with organizations such as schools and businesses are safe from deletion.

The tech giant said the update will be in effect starting this week, however, no accounts will be deleted until December 2023.

"We'll take a phased approach, starting with accounts that are created and never used again. Before deleting accounts, we'll send a few notifications in the months leading up to deletion, both to the account email address and the recovery email (if provided)," Google wrote.

Users can avoid getting caught up in the purge by only reading emails sent to the account, or watching YouTube videos while logged into the account.

Google is hosting billions of user accounts, although it did not announce how many of them are inactive.