Google will start deleting inactive accounts this week

Google is expected to soon start getting rid of some inactive accounts.

The company, owned by Alphabet, is slated to start its phased purge of personal Google Accounts whose owners haven’t signed into or used them in the past two years as soon as Friday, according to a May blog post and a webpage about its inactivity policy. 

Google previously indicated accounts that haven’t seen use since their set-up would face the chopping block initially. 

Accounts obtained through businesses, schools and other organizations won’t be subject to the potential deletion. For the inactive personal accounts, both the account and its contents "within Google Workspace (Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet, Calendar) and Google Photos" could get erased, the company previously said. 

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Users of accounts that could get eliminated will have been informed in multiple instances well ahead of time, with additional warning sent to their applicable recovery emails.

On top of signing in to an account, Google has said reading an email, creating a Google Doc, watching a YouTube video and conducting Google searches are among some of the things that qualify as activity. Having a subscription to a news outlet or an app linked to a Google Account does as well. 

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The potential upcoming deletions stem from an update to its inactivity policy that it implemented in mid-May to boost security efforts. It said at the time that inactive accounts "often rely on old or re-used passwords that may have been compromised, haven’t had two factor authentication set up, and receive fewer security checks by the user."

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Google accounts provide access to various services offered by the tech giant. Gmail, a popular service that requires one, has been around for nearly 20 years. 

The company itself reached its 25-year anniversary in late September.