Log Into Your Neglected Google Account Before 1 December to Avoid Deletion
Many of us manage multiple Google accounts to separate our personal and professional lives. If you have been neglecting one of these accounts, now is the time to log back in.
Because if you don’t, you’d lose your account completely. All your documents, Google Photos and past exchanged emails will be gone.
Starting 1 December 2023, Google will deem any account that hasn’t been accessed in two years as inactive and delete it completely.
Understanding Google’s Updated Inactivity Policy
Google announced their updated inactivity policy back in May. The reason the inactive accounts will be deleted is to mitigate security risks.
Ruth Kricheli, the company’s vice president of product management, explained that accounts that have not been used for a long period of time are more prone to being compromised.
To put it simply, older accounts often rely on old or re-used passwords (probably the same ones you’ve used since you were 12). These accounts have fewer security checks and a 2-step verification is unlikely to be set up.
In fact, Google’s internal analysis revealed that abandoned accounts are at least 10 times less likely to have 2-step verification set up, compared to newer accounts.
This means that old accounts are much more susceptible to security breaches. If the old account is compromised, it can be used for things like identity theft and even malicious content like spam. Thus, Google implemented this policy to reduce the risk of such situations.
Details of the Policy
If your account is managed under an organisation, like a school or business, don’t be alarmed – this policy only impacts personal accounts.
Your account will be considered active if you have YouTube videos on your account or an existing subscription that is linked to your email, for example to an app or news publication.
Multiple notifications and reminders will be sent to your account and recovery email address before deletion.
How to Save Your Account
Keeping your account active is straightforward. You just have to sign into your Gmail account or utilise any Google service such as using Google Drive, watching a YouTube video, using Google Search, using Google to sign into a third-party app and even by simply downloading an app on the Google Play Store.
If you struggle with remembering passwords and would like to ease your signing in process, consider using Google Passkey. This new feature allows you to sign in to apps and websites without entering a username or password, using methods like fingerprint or face scans, or a physical security key, kind of like Singpass.
Make sure to sign-in once every two years to keep your account active and prevent it from being deleted in the foreseeable future.
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