Google to delete Gmail accounts unused for 24 months

If you have a Gmail account but haven't used it for more than two years, Google will delete your account. Google has announced an update to its policies for inactive accounts; the search engine giant has urged users to sign in and review their old Google accounts at least once every 24 months. Earlier, Google had a policy that data stored in accounts that haven't been operated for two years could be deleted, but now it can be completely deleted.

“To reduce this risk, we are updating our inactivity policy for Google Accounts to 2 years across our products. Starting later this year, if a Google Account has not been used or signed into for at least 2 years, we may delete the account and its contents – including content within Google Workspace (Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet, Calendar), YouTube and Google Photos,” Google said in a blog post.

The new policy will not go into effect until December of 2023 at the earliest. This means that users who are not active in Gmail still have time to recover their old accounts. Users are encouraged to recover their previous login information or await further details on how this deletion process will work. In particular, deleted Gmail addresses will not be available for reuse.