When can your Google Account be deleted?

Google has updated its policy on free and legacy accounts. From December 2023, the company will delete accounts that have not been used for two or more years.

Before permanently deleting an account, Google will send warnings for several months to the account's email address, as well as to the account's recovery email address (if one was provided when the email was opened).

Once the account is deleted, users can no longer access their Gmail. Additionally, all Gmail messages, Google Calendar events, Google Drive, Docs and Workspace files, and Google Photos backup copies will be deleted.

The new policy of deleting old and unused accounts is intended to be implemented slowly and carefully. Accounts that have not been used since creation will be deleted first. If you don't want your account to be deleted, you should log in from time to time, check your email, use Google Drive, watch YouTube videos, download apps on Google Play, or at least search for something on Google.

It should be noted that the new policy only applies to regular, free accounts. Corporate or educational accounts will not be affected. Also, the company doesn't plan to delete old YouTube accounts and thus users' videos.

Google also explained that the decision to delete old accounts is due to the need to further protect users from spam, phishing and other security threats.