Google to delete inactive accounts in December

Google announced on Tuesday it will delete inactive accounts that had remained unused for two years starting December. The move comes as a step forward to help prevent hacking of inactive accounts.

The company said that it will delete inactive accounts and their content across Google Workspace, which includes Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet and Calendar, as well as YouTube and Google Photos.

The new policy will only apply to personal Google Accounts and not organisations accounts like schools or businesses.

In 2020, Google said it will remove content stored in an inactive account, however, it will not delete the account itself.

Google will start sending multiple notifications starting from Tuesday to the accounts and a recovery mail of the inactive accounts before deletion.

Last week, Elon Musk as well announced that Twitter would archive inactive accounts, saying that the action is “important to free up abandoned handles.”