It is very easy to create a Google account. It is enough to enter Gmail, or any of the other services of the company and register to create our account and be able to start making use of its services. Many users have two, or even more, Google accounts created: a person, a “troll”, a work… and, over time, many of them end up being forgotten. And this is, in part, what has led the search engine giant to make this decision.
Just a few hours ago, Google announced a change in its inactive account policy that most users will not like. As we can read in this link, the company has made the decision to automatically delete all inactive accounts that are not used in two years.
The reasons that have led the company to make this decision are several, but one of the main ones is that these accounts surely use old and insecure passwords, and can pose a danger to users. In addition, these will not be protected with double authentication, much less with pass keys.
In December of this year, Google will begin to identify the accounts that are inactive and will proceed to notify the owners through an email, which they will surely not read because the account is forgotten. If that account shows activity, it will be maintained. Otherwise, the company will proceed to delete the account and all its contentsuch as emails, Google Drive files, Photos, YouTube videos… absolutely everything.
This new policy only affects personal accounts, that is, company, student, and Workspace accounts will not be affected by this policy change.
How to prevent Google from closing your account
The only way to prevent the company from deleting your account, and all data and information linked to it, is to generating activity. That is, you must use Google products, at least once every two years, so that our account is active and get off the next deletion list. This activity can be generated as follows:
- Send or read emails.
- Use Google Drive.
- Watch videos on YouTube while logged in.
- Download apps or games from the Play Store on Android.
- Use the browser from Chrome or any other browser while logged in.
- Using the Google account through a third-party app or service.
In addition, Google has agreed that those users who pay for Google One or by YouTube Premiumare excluded from the purge, and that their accounts will not be considered inactive while their subscription is in effect.
Download your data
It’s easy that, over time, you have accumulated a lot of files and information inside your Google account. And, if you don’t use it, all this data (like photos from Google Photos) can be gone forever. Although it is very convenient to have everything synchronized with the company’s cloud, we recommend download a copy of your data to the computer. In this way, you will be able to have a backup of all this information and store it, safely, in another place.
To do this, all you have to do is enter Google Takeout and follow the steps indicated to download the data.
