Since the early days of the internet, sending messages and emails has always been necessary. Over time, some companies that offered this service began to stand out and expand their capabilities, taking over practically the entire market with very little competition.
Currently, the leading company in this field is Google, with more than 1.5 billion users who have the Gmail extension.
However, it is still very common to see people who create their accounts and leave them “moldy”, without any use or even memory of their existence.
Therefore, the technology giant has taken measures to prevent this type of situation from happening so frequently, avoiding filling its servers with inactive accounts. Now, some users may lose access to their profiles completely. Learn how to avoid this risk!
Google says it will delete accounts of inactive users
Google has been deleting data from accounts that have not been used for more than two years, but without changing access to them. However, the company has announced that, starting December 1st of this year (2023), any user who has not accessed them for that same amount of time will have their account permanently deleted.
According to disclosures from CNNthe company is adopting this new rule for security reasons for the profile owners themselves. This is due to the fact that old and inactive accounts, in general, tend to have insecure and recycled passwords.
Furthermore, most of them have never adopted other security measures, such as two-step authentication, for example. Therefore, the probability of these accounts being hacked is very high.
How do I prevent my account from being deleted?
Since Google has adopted this new “use it or lose it” system, just stay active and your account will not be at risk.
While you might think that this becomes an obligation to use and a constant charge, it is actually quite simple to maintain it with this activity status. In addition, the company will notify users several times before taking final action.
There is no need to send or receive any email, contrary to popular belief. In fact, Google has several widely used applications and platforms, such as YouTube and Drive, for example, which associate your Gmail with the profiles of these apps. In other words, all you need to do is use one of their services and your account will be secure.
It is worth noting that the company’s concern for security is valid. Therefore, go to your account settings and enable two-step verification to further increase trust.