Google will delete the Gmail and Photos accounts of those who don’t meet a single requirement

Google has changed its security policy and I’ll start doing it delete accounts if a Requirements very specific. This implies that all content from services associated with that account, as well as Gmail emails, photos stored in Google Photos, will be deleted. without contemplation.

The company is carrying out maintenance and prevention activities to strengthen user security, and the first step will be to delete those accounts that in the last two years no register at least one access.

The measure will come into force on December of this year and it won’t be abrupt. Those who have exceeded the time limit will start receiving different notifications to warn them of what is about to happen and be warned in advance.

As it is possible that the person does not enter this account, these notices will arrive in the recovery emails, if they have provided it in time, so that they can be informed by another means of the impending eviction.

Nor will it be as sudden and efficient as pressing a button and removing all accounts in one day. Google said it will start gradually starting in December 2023. “We will take a phased approach, starting with accounts created and never used again.”

What has changed in this new revision is very important. Since, in the previous policy, it was stipulated that if a user kept an inactive account for more than two years, he risked losing the content of the mailnot the account itself.

A Google Account is more than a tool that allows you to maintain your search preferences or access your Gmail mail. It is the gateway to the American company’s entire ecosystem of products and services.

Therefore, this measure – which will not affect accounts of organizations or educational institutions – will affect users of personal accounts in Google Workspace services, i.e. Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet, Calendar; as well as YouTube and Google Photos.

Prevention and safety

Since this year, Google has invested heavily in “security technologies and tools” to protect consumers from threats, such as spam, ransomware, as explained in a note.

For this reason, he believes that if an account hasn’t been used for an extended period of time, it has a high chance of being compromised, as its owners may not have two-factor authentication installed.

After analyzing several cases, it concluded that abandoned accounts are “at least ten times less likely than active accounts to have two-step verification configured,” as can be read in this statement.

Far from being considered a rash move, most online services have inactive account cancellation policies, similar to the one Google just adopted.

To cite a few examples, Twitter, in small print, notes that users must log in at least once every 30 days to maintain their account. In the case of WhatsApp, the period of inactivity to maintain the account must not exceed 120 days.