If you’re one of those people with a bunch of Google email accounts from years ago, today is the day you’ll want to log into all of them.
Google’s policy for inactive accounts used to be to delete data from accounts that hadn’t been used in two years. but the company technology/safety-security/updating-our-inactive-account-policies/”>announced in may which would change its policy in that it could delete inactive accounts entirely.
Google (GOOG) – Get a free report said unused accounts create a security risk because they rely on “old or reused passwords” and likely do not have two-factor authentication.
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Ruth Kricheli, vice president of product management at Google, made a statement in May saying that the removal helps mitigate this security risk.
“To reduce this risk, we are updating our inactivity policy for Google accounts to 2 years on all our products. Starting later this year, if a Google account has not been used or signed in for at least 2 years, we will be able to delete the account and its content, including content within Google Workspace (Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet, Calendar) and Google Photos,” Kricheli wrote.
Google also said that accounts associated with organizations such as schools or businesses will not be affected by the mass deletion. According to Google, any account that has uploaded a YouTube video will also not be deleted from now on.
And while the new rules are scheduled to go into effect on Friday, December 1, it won’t necessarily be a direct removal of all eligible accounts. The company said it would take a “phased approach” by prioritizing accounts that were “created and never used again.”
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However, if you want to ensure that your accounts, data, and information are not lost in one of your older accounts, there are several ways that Google will still consider your account as active.
These include reading or sending an email, using Google Drive, watching a YouTube video, downloading an app, using Google Search, or signing in to Google using a third-party app or service.
So if you or one of your older family members may have stored some important photos in that throwaway email from half a decade ago, now is the time to log into that account to make sure you don’t lose those precious memories. While you’re at it, maybe it’s time to transfer them to an email you use more frequently.
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