Google recent announced that all email addresses that has not been use for more than two years will be deleted from their system. Though there are some exemptions:
Google announced earlier this year that all unused gmail account that was created and has not be active for a period of 24 months will be deleted by December 1, but now the deadline is few weeks away. So how would you know if your gmail account is inactive, well it simple, according to Google, your gmail account is inactive if you have not perform the following;
- Signing in; reading or sending an email
- using Google Drive
- watching a YouTube video
- sharing photos
- downloading an app
- and using Google browser
All above listed must be done while your gmail account is signed in. So if you have not done any activities on your Google account in the past two years Google consider such account as inactive. Having said that, there are some exceptions, this policy only applied to personal accounts, if your account is tied to a school, an employer or other organizations this policy does not affect you. And if you have purchase something from Google play store or if you have a balance on your account you are safe from this policy as well.
"Google products reserve the right to delete your data when your account has not been used within that product for a 2-year period," Google states in its Inactive Google Account Policy. "December 1, 2023 is the earliest a Google Account will be deleted due to this policy."
So if an account is found inactive by the Tech giant, all content and data will be deleted. this includes a host of informations stored by Google, which include Google calendar events, Google photo, Google Doc and email.
If you have an account and don't want Google to flag as inactive kindly login on or before December 1 to save it from this policy.