Google will begin its first round of removing inactive accounts and all of the accounts' content this coming week.
The tech giant will be deleting accounts inactive "within a 2-year period" starting Dec. 1 along with the account's photos, calendar entries, e-mails, contacts, and Drive documents.
Google first announced its updated inactive-accounts policy back in May.
The search engine site is purging unused accounts that received fewer security checks as "more likely to be compromised."
The phaseout will start with accounts created and never used again.
According to Google, notifications of the account removal are sent months in advance to the account and recovery email to alert the users.
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How to Save Inactive Account
Thankfully it is easy to save old accounts before the big purge in December.
Just simply log in to the account. Google said it records the account as active when using other Google-affiliated apps or signing to a third service via the Google account.
Opening an email, watching a YouTube video, and accessing Google Drive can also remove the account from being "inactive."
The actions can be completed on any device as long as it uses the old account.
Accounts with active online subscriptions, whether via Google One or other third-party services, will not be considered for deletion.
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How to Recover Data from Deleted Account
If the account is deleted before the user accessed it, there are still some ways to recover the account and all of its contents.
Owners of deleted accounts can reach the Google Support Center to confirm the user's identification. Users will need to enter a new password not used before for the recovered account.
Once completed, users can access the account again and gain an "active" status in the database.
