Haven’t logged in to Gmail in a while? Then there is a chance that this will soon no longer be possible: Google will remove inactive accounts.
Anyone who has a Gmail account but has not logged in for two years runs the risk of losing the account. In mei Google already announced that it would delete old accounts. The search engine giant used to do that for those who had not logged into their account for two years or more. However, only the data linked to the account disappeared. Starting in December, Google will delete the entire account.
It is not the case that Google will immediately delete all old and inactive accounts on December 1. Initially, Google will delete accounts that were once created but never used again. Are there any YouTube videos linked to your account? Then you’re in luck: Google currently leaves those accounts out of harm’s way, allowing them to continue to exist without any problems.
Activate Gmail account
Don’t have any YouTube videos linked to your account? Then you must ensure that the account is activated in another way. That’s extremely simple: all you need to do is perform a Google search while you are logged in with your account. You can also upload a file to Google Drive, watch a YouTube video or even just read an email via the Gmail client.
Is your account at risk of being deleted? Then Google has normally already informed you of this. The question is of course whether that warning is effective: by reading the warning email, you reactivate the account. The search engine giant cannot send push notifications via Android either: if your Gmail account was used to log in to an Android phone, your account is also active. Users whose accounts are at risk of being deleted may miss Google’s warning.
The account deletions should make Gmail more secure. According to Google, unused accounts are more at risk of being (unnoticed) compromised. Deleting the old accounts would certainly do that safety problem remedy.
