According to TechUnwrapped , one of the interesting things about Gmail is that Google allows easy registration of new accounts, and also provides 15 GB of free storage space for each account to use for various online services of the company. The explosion of accounts leads to the company needing to manage a large amount of data and having to scale the infrastructure to manage that data.
Accounts that have been inactive for more than 2 years will be affected.
Unlike other services, Google has never taken action to delete inactive accounts after a certain period of time. This has resulted in a large number of abandoned accounts that consume Google’s infrastructure resources, mainly storage. These are numbers that Google is very aware of, and it seems that the company has finally decided to do something about these inactive accounts.
According to a report to Google’s official blog, The Keyword, the company has revised its policy on inactive accounts and will begin removing them later this year. However, the company’s approach to the issue is moderate, which is certainly appreciated by those who do not use their accounts very often.
Google isn't citing the cost of maintaining these accounts as the reason for the change, but rather security concerns. The company explains that "forgotten or abandoned accounts often rely on old or reused passwords that may have been compromised, don't have two-factor authentication set up, and receive fewer security checks from users." The company also says that if an account is compromised, it could be used to compromise the owner's security.
Also in the announcement, if a Google account is not used or logged in for at least two years, the company can delete that account and all data associated with that account, including content in Workspace (Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet, and Calendar), YouTube, and Photos. However, this policy will only apply to personal Google accounts and will not affect organizational accounts.
Users are advised to log in at least once every 2 years with their Google account.
The report said Google’s first round of account deletions won’t happen until at least December of this year, and will start with accounts that were created and never used again. Additionally, the company will send multiple notifications in the months leading up to deletion to both the account email address and a recovery email if the user provided one at the time.
To prevent accounts from being marked as inactive, the company recommends that users sign in at least once every two years. This doesn’t necessarily apply to just accessing Gmail or Docs, but also to watching videos on YouTube, downloading apps from the Play Store, using Google search, using the account to sign in to third-party apps or services, and more.
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