How to stop your Gmail account from being deleted

Google is in the process of deleting a large number of Gmail accounts. Here’s how to avoid losing yours.

The internet giant started deleting accounts last December if they hadn’t been used for two years, after announcing updated inactive account policies in May.

Any Google Account that hasn’t been used or signed in for at least two years can now be deleted, including content within Google Workspace – Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet and Calendar – and Google Photos.

Google said it would take a phased approach, starting with accounts that were created and no longer used.

Google will send the user multiple notifications in the months prior to deletion, both in the account email and in the recovery email if available.

“The easiest way to keep a Google Account active is to sign in at least once every two years,” said Google’s vice president of product management Ruth Kricheli in a post on the safety and security blog. “If you have recently signed in to your Google Account or any of our services, your account is considered active and will not be deleted.”

Activity may include a variety of actions when you sign in or are signed in to a Google Account, such as reading or sending an email, using Google Drive, watching a video on YouTube, downloading an app on Google Play Store, using Search with Google, or using Sign in with Google to sign in to a third-party app or service.

If the user has an existing subscription set up through their Google Account, such as Google One cloud storage, a news publication, or an app, Google also considers this account activity and will not be affected.

However, users will have to specifically log in to Google Photos every two years to avoid deleting photos and other content.

“Furthermore, we have no plans to delete YouTube video accounts at this time,” Ms. Kricheli said.

The policy applies only to personal Google accounts and does not affect accounts for organizations such as schools or businesses.

Google said the change was to reduce the security risks associated with account hijacking, as accounts that have not been used for a long period of time are more likely to be compromised.

“That’s because forgotten or unattended accounts often rely on old or reused passwords that may have been compromised, don’t have two-factor authentication in place, and receive fewer security checks from the user,” Ms Kricheli said.

“Our internal analysis shows that abandoned accounts are at least 10 times less likely than active accounts to set up two-step verification. Meaning, these accounts are often vulnerable, and once an account is compromised, it can be used for anything from identity theft to a vector for unwanted or even malicious content, such as spam.”

More than 1.8 billion people worldwide use Gmail, which is the second most popular email provider after Apple.

The service was first launched in 2004 with one gigabyte of storage, a huge amount for the time.

“This update aligns our policy with industry standards around account retention and deletion and also limits the amount of time Google keeps your unused personal information,” Ms. Kricheli said.

“We will roll this out slowly and carefully, with plenty of notice.”