Google announced an update to its policy on inactive accounts. Starting this year, if a user hasn’t used an account for two years, it will be automatically deleted with all content, including Google Workspace data (Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet, Calendar), YouTube and Google Photos.
The new policy applies only to personal Google accounts and does not affect schools, businesses or other organizations.
The update brings the policy in line with industry standards for storing and deleting accounts and limits the amount of time Google stores unused personal information, the company said on its blog.
Google plans to run such a purge slowly and carefully, with lots of notifications to mail and the linked account used for recovery (if specified).
The policy officially goes into effect May 16, but deletions won’t start until December 2023. Empty accounts that were created and never used will be deleted first.
