Please note that unused Google accounts will soon be deactivated

A deactivated account will see all its content disappear. Photos, but also e-mails or documents stored on Google Drive will go to the trash. Morad HEGUI/Goodpics – stock.adobe.com

Big cleaning operation at Google. The Californian giant has announced that it will delete from December 2023 all Google accounts that have remained inactive for more than two years, with the exception of those opened by companies.

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A deactivated account will see all its content disappear. Photos, but also e-mails or documents stored on Google Drive will go to the trash. Only YouTube videos will be spared. These will remain online, even if their creator is no longer active. One way to prevent an entire section of the internet from disappearing.

“Risks of being hacked”

Google justifies this new policy by the fight against cybercrime. Between old weak pwords and the absence of two-factor verification, “an inactive account has a higher risk of being hacked”, recalls the group in a press release. And a compromised account “may lead to identity theft or be used to send malicious content, such as spam.”

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The American group specifies that it will first delete accounts that have never been used after their creation. The others will be targeted later, after having warned their owners several months in advance. An operation that is only possible if the Internet user has provided another contact e-mail address… To avoid seeing his old Google accounts disappear next year, there is only one solution: reconnect to them as soon as possible, if need by resetting a pword forgotten over the years.