Deleting digital accounts that you rarely or never use not only reduces the amount of clutter in your online life-it keeps you safer too. Every extra account you've got is an extra target for a hacker, an extra database that might leak, and an extra way that someone might get access to some of your bigger, more important accounts.
When it comes to deleting a Google account, the process isn't difficult or long-winded, and Google will even let you download your data first. Bear in mind that deleting a Google account wipes out everything associated with your Google username, from the emails in Gmail, to the places you've saved in Google Maps, to the files you've saved to Google Drive.
It's also worth noting that Google shuts down accounts automatically if they haven't been used for two years, primarily for the security reasons that we've already mentioned. If you go to delete a Google account and find that it's already gone, this might be why-though Google does send plenty of warnings in advance.
Head to your Google account page on the web, and you'll see a Data and privacy link on the left: Click on this to get an overview of all the data Google has on you (which might be more than you realized). To get your data off Google's servers and on to your local computer, follow the Download your data link toward the bottom of the page.
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