Not Logged Into Your Gmail Account For A While? Google May Delete It

Google said the company will delete the Gmail accounts which have not been used or signed into for at least two years.

New Delhi: If you have not used your Gmail account for two years then Google may delete your account starting from December. Google said the company will delete the Gmail account which had not been used or signed into for at least two years. This have been done in an effort to prevent security threats including hacks.

Google might delete the account and content across Google Workspace, which includes Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet and Calendar, as well as YouTube and Google Photos, according to a report by news agency Reuters.

The policy change only applies to personal Google Accounts and not to those for organizations like schools or businesses.

In 2020, Google had said it would remove content stored in an inactive account, but not delete the account itself.

Starting Tuesday, Google will send multiple notifications to the account email address and recovery mail of the inactive accounts before deletion.

The update aligns Google policy with industry standards around retention and account deletion and also limits the amount of time Google retains unused personal information.

“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,” Google explained.

Google’s internal analysis shows that abandoned accounts are at least 10x less likely than active accounts to have 2-step verification set up.

This means that 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.

“To reduce this risk, we are updating our inactivity policy for Google Accounts to 2 years across our products,” said the company.

“We will take a phased approach, starting with accounts that were created and never used again,” it added.

Before deleting an account, Google will send multiple notifications over the months leading up to deletion, to both the account email address and the recovery email (if one has been provided).