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Google has been around forever (or it feels like it), which means that over the years, the company has probably received a ton of requests from users creating their own accounts. Now, if you happen to have an old Google account that is no longer in use, then you might want to take note.
This is because Google has announced that moving forwards, they will be deleting old and inactive accounts. This will come into effect starting in December 2023 and will apply to accounts that have not been used in the last two years. According to Google, the reasoning for this is:
“Even with these protections, if an account hasn’t been used for an extended period of time, it is more likely to be compromised. This is because 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. 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.”
Keep in mind that this only applies to personal accounts, and that those used by organizations or schools will not be affected. To make sure your account is considered “active”, you’ll need to make sure that you have used it to read or send an email, use it for Google Drive, watch a YouTube video, download an app from the Play Store, use Google Search (while signed into the account), or use it to sign into third-party apps or services.
While there is a chance you may no longer use that account but want to keep the name, then you’ll need to make sure you’ve done the things we mentioned above otherwise come December 2023, Google will delete it.
Source: Google
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