Gadgetren – Google recently announced a policy to delete Google accounts that have been inactive for 2 years. This policy applies to Google products such as Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet, Calendar and Google Photos.

This rule will go into effect on December 23, 2023 and only for personal Google Accounts. This rule will not affect accounts for organizations such as schools or businesses.

Before the Google Account is deleted, it will also send several notices in advance for several months before the deletion to both the account email address and the recovery email address, if any.

This notification is intended to provide preparedness to users and when they want to back up data. Users can download and export data to other platforms through the Takeout feature.

In order to avoid these security threats, Google advises users to keep their Google Account active by performing regular activities.

Some examples of activities that can be done are signing in to a Google account to read or send email, using Google Drive, watching YouTube videos, downloading apps from the Google Play Store, using Google Search, signing in to Google, and signing in to a third-party – party apps or services.

The arrival of this update complies with industry standards regarding account retention and deletion and limits the amount of time Google retains unused personal user information.

Usually a Google account that has not been used for a long time is likely to be easily hacked. Like users who forget their passwords, they forget to set up two-factor authentication and run fewer security checks.

Therefore, by deleting an inactive Google Account, Google says it will protect users from security threats such as spam, phishing scams and account theft.