Now is the time to act if you want to keep a Google account you haven't used in a while. Starting Dec. 1, Google will start deleting "inactive" accounts that is, accounts that haven't been used in at least two years. Google accounts give access to the company's other products, including Gmail, Drive, Docs, Meet, Calendar, Photos and YouTube. That means emails, videos, photos, documents and any other content sitting in an inactive account are at risk.
To prevent it from being deleted, sign in to your Google account before Friday. "If you have signed into your Google Account or any of our services recently, your account is considered active and will not be deleted," the company said in a May blog post outlining the policy. Before the deletion process happens, Google says users will have received multiple notifications in the preceding months to both the account email address and the recovery email (if you have provided one). The purge will be a phased approach, starting with accounts that were created and never used again, the company says. There are exceptions: Any account that was set up for you through your work, school or other organization won't be automatically deleted. The policy only applies to personal accounts.
You'll have to take an extra step if you want to hold on to content from a specific product that you haven't used in some time. If you want to keep photos from your Google Drive, for example, it's best to sign in to that particular service. That's because the tech company says it "reserves the right to delete data in a product if you are inactive in that product for at least two years. This is determined based on each product's inactivity policies."
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