As Google ramps up its security measures, the company is deleting inactive accounts that haven’t been touched for two years as a way of protecting users from security threats, such as identity theft, unwanted spam and scams.
Starting tomorrow, December 1, Google is removing unattended accounts, including all photos, Drive documents, contacts, e-mails and calendar entries. The tech giant announced the change to its inactivity policy back in May.
Google explained in a blog post that inactive accounts are “more likely to be compromised” since they could use old or re-used passwords and two-factor authentication may not be set up. The first batch of accounts to go will be the ones that were created and then never used again.
To ensure your account isn’t deleted, it’s recommended that you sign into your account and signal to Google that you’re active by using Google Drive, Google Photos, Gmail or Google Play. For instance, sending an email, downloading an app, conducting a Google search or watching a YouTube video. Plus, if you have active subscriptions like Google One or other apps, then your account is safe from the purge.
Affected account holders will receive multiple warnings before their accounts are terminated so there’s plenty of time to download data or back it up. The company suggests using its Takeout service, which saves the data stored within Google products. Examples of other file-hosting services include Dropbox and Microsoft OneDrive.
Google’s new inactivity policy only applies to users with personal accounts, so it won’t affect people with school or business accounts.