Google Accounts That Sit Unused For Too Long Will Soon Be Deleted Entirely

Abandoning one of your internet accounts might seem a victimless crime on the surface, but these accounts can tax data centers and web servers of precious resources even if they're not in active use — plus, as Google points out, they are prime targets for hacking. The company is instituting a new policy to completely delete your Google account if you haven't signed in for at least two years, which is ages in the online world. It won't just deactivate you — you'll lose all your data, including Google Photos, your YouTube history and purchased content, Gmail archives, Google Drive documents, and more.

"Forgotten or unattended accounts often rely on old or re-used passwords that may have been compromised, haven't had two factor authentication set up, and receive fewer security checks by the user," warns Google. "Our internal analysis shows abandoned accounts are at least 10x less likely than active accounts to have 2-step-verification set up. Meaning, these accounts are often vulnerable, and once an account is compromised, it can be used for anything from identity theft to a vector for unwanted or even malicious content, like spam."

Google says it will begin deleting accounts in December 2023 with a phased approach. Accounts that were created and never used for anything will be the first to go. Google will attempt to send multiple notifications to those account owners before they're wiped away for good. Your recovery email will also receive the notices if you've set one up.

We thought surviving the purge would look a lot different in 2023. Well, this specific purge is a cakewalk. You can preserve your account by simply signing in at least once every two years. For starters, ensure you're using one of Google's services in some fashion. This can include reading an email, watching a YouTube video, using Google Search, or even simply signing into a third-party app or service using your Google account. Google also considers active subscriptions as a form of activity, so your account should be safe if you're paying for services like Google One or YouTube Premium.

Do you use Google Photos? If so, you'll want to be especially diligent. Google Photos has a separate retention policy, so you'll still need to log in to that service once every two years to ensure your photos aren't deleted, even if you're active across other services. To help maintain long-term access to your accounts, Google suggests enabling a recovery account and keeping it up-to-date. You can also engage tools in the Inactive Account Manager that automatically handles your data after 1.5 years of inactivity, such as sending files to trusted contents, enabling an autoresponder in Gmail, and opting for account deletion altogether. If you want more control, you can always download a buffet of your data for safekeeping using Google's Takeout feature.