Google has already confirmed that it will be purging inactive accounts in 2024. As reported by Forbes last year, the purge of dormant accounts and deletion of Gmail messages with Google Photos images started on December 1, 2024. But what is an inactive account, according to Google’s definition, and how can you ensure your precious messages and photographic memories are not lost forever?

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Which Google Accounts Are At Risk Of Imminent Deletion?

To be fair to Google, it has given plenty of notice of the ongoing account purge that will gather apace during 2024. If you are one of the 1.8 billion users of Gmail, or 2 billion holders of a Google Photos account, likely to be impacted by the policy decision, you should have already been notified. I have received emails from Google dating back to July 2023 that warn that some of my accounts are in danger of deletion, and they provide advice on steps to take to prevent this from happening.

The inactive account deletion policy only applies to holders of personal Google accounts, with business and educational accounts unaffected. Among this number, accounts that have not been signed into for at least two years will remain untouched by the policy. If, however, you have accounts that have laid dormant for at least two years from December 2023, then these could well be in line for deletion. It is, however, relatively easy, even at this late stage, to save your email and photo data from these accounts.

I have reached out to Google for a statement regarding which inactive accounts are next in line for deletion, after starting with those that were created but then never used again.

How To Protect Your Gmail Messages And Google Photos From Deletion

First and foremost, search your memory for any Google accounts you may have that you no longer use. For those that you can remember and may contain content that you value, be that email messages, photos, documents stored in Google Drive and so on, sign into them now. As long as you do this at least once every 24 months, your accounts and data will be safe until there is any further change to Google’s inactive account policy.

If, on the other hand, you can’t remember your account details, then there are still ways to save your data. The primary method is to employ the official Google account recovery process, which uses known email addresses and telephone numbers. Even if you cannot recall the account details, entering a current or previous email address or telephone number should help to surface them. You will be sent a verification code by either email or SMS, so it does require one of those to be currently accessible, and then asked to enter your password; if you don’t use a password manager and cannot recall this, enter any old thing and you will get offered a password-reset opportunity involving another verification code to be delivered.

Once you have access to these inactive accounts, take some time to back up any critical data, be that by way of Gmail messages and attachments, documents or photos. Given that Google has stated that the inactive account policy is being enacted for security reasons, with older accounts being far more likely to get compromised, it would also be a priority of yours to add two-factor authentication protection to your accounts as well as ensuring the login password is both unique and robust. Gmail accounts, in particular, are greatly sought after by criminal actors because they can be considered a gateway to further valuable resources by way of password reset information, for example.

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