If you have a throwaway Google account — you know, the one you use to sign up for all those trials and promotions — be prepared, the account could disappear soon.
Google has a policy that any account that has not been used within two years can be deleted as an inactive account. The policy only applies to personal accounts, not ones set up through work, school or an organization.
The company announced the move and the deadline — which is now only days away — earlier this year, PC Mag reported.
The reason given was that hackers can use old email addresses to send scams. The accounts may also not have two-factor authentication set up, The New York Times reported in May.
To be considered an active account, a user may have done one of the following tasks while logged into it:
- Read or sent an email.
- Used Google Drive.
- Watched YouTube.
- Shared a photo.
- Downloaded an app.
- Used Google search.
- Used the account to sign into a third-party app or service.
Check your account status by signing into the account.
Google will start the process of closing accounts with those that were created but never accessed, PC Mag reported.
If Google considers the account inactive, it won’t disappear without warning. Google will send an email to the account and to any recovery email account, if you have set one up.
Dec. 1 is the earliest that Google will start deleting accounts because of the policy, but if you don’t want to wait until the Google gods decide for you, you can take a few steps either to keep the account active or take matters into your own hands.
You can delete your account on your own at any time, though you will lose all data including emails, files and calendars. To close your account, you can follow the steps found here.
Before the account is closed, either by you or by Google, you may want to download all your data. Those instructions can be found here.
