Starting December 2023, Google will start deleting inactive accounts.
Why would Google delete accounts?
Having a Google account lets you have access to many services, such as Gmail, Youtube, Blogspot and many others. Surely, with Google being the most used and popular service provider in the world, there are A LOT of registered accounts that have not been used for years.
All of these accounts take up space on Google’s servers, and keep usernames taken and locked that could be used by other people. Even though a Gmail address of a deleted account won’t be able to be used to register a new account, usernames on other Google services possibly will.
In order to save on space, and to free up usernames for people to use on their Google accounts and other services offered by the company, they will start deleting inactive accounts. They also claim that it’s a privacy issue, and they want to protect your information from unauthorized access and the risk of someone gaining access to your private information. Think what you will of this one.
An inactive account and any content in it will be eligible for deletion from December 1, 2023.
How to keep account active?
All things considered, Google is being very fair about the whole thing. You basically have to be inactive for 2 years in order to get your account deleted. And all it takes for an account to be considered active is for you to login into the account once.
You don’t really have to do other things, such as sending an email, or uploading a video on Youtube, or publishing a post on your blogger blog, or using Google search. All you have to do is login, and your account’s activity gets renewed for another 2 years. I think that 2 years is absolutely fair.
Additionally, if your account goes inactive, Google will send reminder emails to your recovery email (if you added one to your account) for about 8 months before your account gets deleted. Very fair and considerate of them.
What I like to do is, every January I log into all of the email accounts that I own – Google, Outlook, Yahoo, GMX, etc. I don’t know what kinds of inactivity policies all of these companies have, but I figure 1 year is good enough. In fact, I believe that Yahoo has a 1+ year inactivity policy. Anyway, this is what I do, and it works for me 😀
Exceptions?
There are some exceptions to the policy. If your Google account has YouTube channels under it with videos or comments. If your account has a gift card with a monetary balance. Or if your account has a published application, for example, one that hosts an app on the Google Play store. Other exceptions to this policy are available here.
Again, totally fair and considerate of them.
Here is a video I made talking about this:
Conclusion
In my opinion, Google’s new policy is completely understandable and fair.
2 years is a long time, and if you haven’t logged into your Google account or any of the associated services for 2 years, then you are probably never going to use that account again anyway.