By Fawaz Adebisi
Google, the US-based tech giant, has revealed its intention to wipe out accounts that have not been active for two years.
This was according to a blog post by the company, stressing that an account is considered inactive if the user has not performed any action in it for 24 months.
Actions include signing in, sending or reading an email, using Google Drive, watching a YouTube video, sharing photos, downloading an app, and searching while signed in.
The company stated that the deletion of inactive accounts will begin on December 1, 2023.
The policy only affects personal accounts, not those associated with an employer, school, or other organisation.
The blog post reads: “Google products reserve the right to delete your data when your account has not been used within that product for a 2-year period.”
“December 1, 2023 is the earliest a Google Account will be deleted due to this policy.”
The company also clarified that there are some exceptions to this policy; such as if the user has bought something in the Google Play store or has a gift card with a positive balance.
Google said it will notify users beforehand by sending emails to the affected accounts and any available recovery email addresses.
It was however gathered that if a user doesn’t want his account deleted, all that is required to keep the account active is to log in once every two years.
Also, according to Google, activities such as reading an email, watching a YouTube video, or using Google search would be enough to keep an account from being deleted.
In the same vein, if a user stores images on a Google Photos account, one will need to log into the service separately to avoid one’s photos being permanently deleted.
Users who maintain an active subscription for services like news publications or apps through their Gmail account will also not face deletion.
Accounts that have videos uploaded to YouTube will also be saved, while the change will not affect business or school accounts.
