Every day Google works hard to keep you and our private information safe and secure by preventing unauthorized access to your Google Account with their built-in security protections. And keeping you safe means having strong privacy practices across Google products that minimize how long Google store our personal files and any data associated with them. Google wants to protect our private information and prevent any unauthorized access to our account even if we’re no longer using Google services.
Therefore, they are updating the inactivity period for a Google Account to two years across all Google products and services. This change starts rolling out today and will apply to any Google Account that’s been inactive, meaning it has not been signed into or used within a two-year period. An inactive account and any content in it will be eligible for deletion from December 1, 2023.
What this means for you
These changes do not impact you unless you have been inactive in your Google Account for two years or have not used your account to sign in to any Google service for over two years.While the changes go into effect today, the earliest they would enforce any account deletion would be December 2023.If your account is considered inactive, Google will send several reminder emails to both you and your recovery emails (if any have been provided) before they take any action or delete any account content. These reminder emails will go out at least 8 months before any action is taken on your account.After a Google Account is deleted, the Gmail address for the deleted account cannot be used again when creating a new Google Account.
How to keep your account active?
The simplest way to keep a Google Account active is to sign in to the account at least once every two years. If you have signed in to your Google Account recently in the past two years, your account is considered active and will not be deleted.
Other ways to keep your account active include:
Reading or sending an emailUsing Google DriveWatching a YouTube videoSharing a photoDownloading an appUsing Google SearchUsing Sign in with Google to sign in to a third-party app or service
There are some exceptions to this policy.
Examples include:
a Google Account with YouTube channels, videos or comments; an account that has a gift card with a monetary balance; or an account that has a published application, for example, one that hosts an app on the Google Play store.
Other exceptions to this policy are available here.
Google also offers tools to help manage your Google Account and provide options to back up your data, including the ability to download your data using Google Takeout, and allowing you to plan for what happens to your data if you’re inactive for a specific period of time with the Inactive Account Manager. So before an account is deleted, Google will send email notifications to the Google Account and its recovery email (if one has been provided). You should verify that your recovery email is up to date.
