Google Will Be Deleting Gmail Accounts Next Week. Here's How To Keep Your Account Safe
You must act now if you want to save your Google account from deletion.
Google will be deleting inactive Gmail accounts and all their related services from 1 December
Google announced recently on their support page that they will be deleting inactive accounts, along with all contents associated with those accounts. These include Gmail inboxes, Photos, Calendar appointments, Contacts, YouTube videos, and Drive content.
According to Google, an inactive Google account is considered an account that has not been used within a two-year period.
Why is Google deleting old accounts?
Image via Sora Shimazaki/Pexels
According to Google, inactive accounts are prone to be compromised. This is because inactive accounts are commonly older accounts and often rely on old or re-used passwords that may have been compromised.
Older accounts may have yet to set up two-factor authentication (2FA). This is one of the most foolproof ways to secure an account as 2FA commonly requires a separate device that only the person has access to.
Here's how you can preserve your Google account:
If you're signed in while doing the following activity, then your account is considered active:
1. Reading/sending an email
2. Using Google Drive
3. Watching a YouTube video
4. Sharing a photo
5. Downloading an app
6. Using Google Search
7. Using Sign in with Google to sign in to a third-party app or service
You can take these actions on any device, as long as it is logged in to your account. If you have more than one account, then you might want to consider logging in to your other accounts as well.
Google will start purging inactive accounts from 1 December
Therefore, now's a good time to log in to those old and dusty accounts you have.
If you forget, Google will send reminder emails to both the primary account and the recovery emails at least eight months before your account gets deleted.
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