Google recently announced a new policy that will affect accounts that have not been active for over two years.
The good news is that Google won’t be deleting accounts just yet, but if you have one you have not used for a while, you want to make sure you log in before December 1, 2023. After that date, Google might start deleting data and content of inactive accounts across all its products from Gmail, Drive, Photos, YouTube, and others.
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If you have not logged in to your account for two years, you could lose access to your emails, files, photos, and other data saved on their servers.
Apart from these, Google will also delete data from accounts over the storage limit for over two years. Doing so allows the company to free up storage space that can significantly improve the experience for their most active users.
Google’s Free Storage
According to Google, more than 4 billion users are using its services. Google provides each user with 15 GB of free storage. As more people create and use their accounts, the demand for storage also rises.
Who Will This Policy Affect
The good news is that this new policy will not affect most of their active users. Google has stated that it will notify users multiple times before they start deleting any of their data or content.
The company will give you a 3-month heads-up by notifying you via email or alerts on Google products before your account becomes inactive.
If you want to prevent this from happening to your account, here are some simple steps you need to take before December 1, 2023:
- Sign in to your Google account.
- Use a Google product such as Gmail, Google Docs, or YouTube once every two years.
- Manage your files on Google Drive.
- Delete unwanted data to stay within the limit.
This policy will affect all users worldwide, which means users in the UAE and Saudi Arabia can expect this to take effect on the same day as the others.
If you’re a Google user, we recommend that you take an audit of your account and log in to prevent it from getting flagged and removed from the system.
