Google to delete your unused accounts.

According to a recent announcement, Google will begin erasing user accounts that haven't been used for more than two years.

The warning applies to information in Google Workspace, YouTube, and Google Photos as well as services including Gmail, Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Meet, and Google Calendar. Ruth Kricheli, Google's Vice President of Product Management, promises that this policy solely applies to individual Google accounts and won't have an impact on accounts for institutions like corporations or schools.

Google plans to delete accounts 'slowly and carefully, with plenty of notice' starting in December at the earliest. Google will notify you on several occasions in the months before cancelling your account. The account email and these emails will both be sent.

For security reasons, Google claims that inactive accounts are at least ten times less likely to have two-step verification set up than active accounts, making them more susceptible to fraud. When an account is abandoned, it frequently uses previously used or compromised passwords, lacks two-factor authentication, and gets less user attention when it comes to security. Once a user account has been stolen, it can be exploited for...