Google has this week has announced that it will be updating its policy on inactive accounts. The policy will come into effect soon and will not affect accounts for schools and businesses. One of the reasons is due to that older accounts are more likely to be compromised, as less secure practices of security are likely to be used such as weak passwords and no 2FA enabled.

Google has said that any account that has not been logged into for the past two years will be deleted. This process will be started in December 2023 and the company will be providing plenty of warning to users before an account is deleted. Google has said that emails will be sent to the user and their recovery email address multiple times before an account is deleted.

This will be affecting anything Google related, so Gmail, Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Meet, YouTube and more. However, those accounts that have live YouTube videos posted will not be deleted. This comes from Rene Richie, the current YouTube Liaison.

Confirming we have no plans to delete accounts with YT videos! 🙏 https://t.co/TdRImnz2xW

— Creator Liaison (@YouTubeLiaison) May 17, 2023