Update, Dec. 15, 2024: This story, originally published Dec. 14 now includes additional in-depth advice on how to securely recover a forgotten username and password to an inactive Gmail account to prevent deletion in 2025 while avoiding hacker scams.
With more than 1.8 billion users, according to Google’s own figures, Gmail is the most popular free email platform on the planet. If you have received an email from Google warning that one of your Gmail accounts is to be deleted, then you need to act now even if the account deletion date is set for some months into 2025. If you haven’t had an email, I’d caution you to check the advice in this article to be on the safe side and prevent the possibility of your emails being lost forever. Here’s what you need to know.
Gmail Account Deletion Warnings
I have received a number of emails across the course of this year, and 2023 for that matter, about Gmail accounts of mine that have been listed as inactive and, therefore, slated for deletion. These warnings come with an account execution date after which point I would be unable to access any emails stored using that account. This refers to a Google account, so it’s not just Gmail email messages that face being confined to the trashcan of history, Google Photos will face the same fate, for example, as will Google Docs. So, what is going on, and why are these warnings being sent out?
First things first: do not panic. While Google is, indeed, deleting accounts, that doesn’t mean that everyone is at risk. What’s more, there are steps to take to protect your accounts even if you do find yourself on the receiving end of a deletion warning email from Google. The warning applies to what Google considers as being inactive, and as such impacted by changes to the inactive account policy that became active as of Dec. 1, 2023.
A May 16, 2023 policy update announcement made it quite clear what the reasoning behind the move was, and how an inactive account was defined: if you have not signed into a Google account for at least two years then it is officially considered inactive.
It should also be made clear that the inactive account policy only applies to personal accounts and as such will not impact those accounts for organizations such as schools or businesses. “This update aligns our policy with industry standards around retention and account deletion,” Google said, “and also limits the amount of time Google retains your unused personal information.”
Inactive Gmail Accounts Pose A Security Risk
Then inactive account policy update was made primarily for reasons of security. The argument being that inactive accounts are far more likely to be compromised than active ones. This actually makes very good sense from the security risk perspective when you apply some critical thinking. After all, accounts which have been dormant for a couple of years are more likely to rely on old, re-used or weak passwords, for example. And that’s before we come to the not so small matter of two-factor authentication is much less likely to be enabled as a secondary layer of account protection. “Our internal analysis shows abandoned accounts are at least 10x less likely than active accounts to have 2-step verification set up,” Google said.
How To Protect Your Gmail Account From Deletion In 2025
If you only have a single Gmail account which you use regularly, you can relax as this policy will not impact you. If you have multiple Gmail accounts, however, read on. I fall into this latter category like many people as I have accounts for specific subscriptions, associated with specific personas, used as data storage vaults and so on. Some of these date back many years and have not been used for longer than the inactive policy deletion timeframe.
Protecting your accounts from deletion is easier than you might think: just use them. This can be as simple as signing into the said Google account once every couple of years, although I’d recommend doing so at least every six months to check all is OK. You can read or send an email, share a photo or watch a YouTube video, use Google Drive or even search. As long as you are signed into the account in question it is being used and safe from deletion.
How To Safely Recover A Lost Gmail Account Username And Password
First things first: Don’t ask for help on social media platforms when it comes to lost passwords or being locked out of any online account. You could easily fall victim to what I call the 10-second Gmail hack attack. This is where bots sit and wait for certain keywords and phrases to be used in messages posted to the platform and respond almost immediately with a “personal suggestion” of a “hacker” who has supposedly helped them recover an account in just those circumstances, even when Google has failed to help. Newsflash: if Google can’t help you recover your account you ain’t getting it back! Hackers are good people, for the most part, which is why no decent hacker would ever offer to help you crack a Gmail account password. The common denominator here is that these criminals will use the situation to relieve you of money for doing nothing or exploit your email security anxiety to get you to hand over your account credentials. Only ever turn to Google itself for advice in getting your account access back, which you can do safely starting here.
If you can’t remember your account details, all is not lost: Use the Google account recovery process. This is the only recovery method offered by Google and as such the only safe and secure method of regaining access to a forgotten username or password. To begin, you will need to enter the telephone number or recovery email associated with the account in question. I can already hear you screaming at the screen that if you’ve forgotten the username and/or password it’s pretty unlikely you’d know either of those. However, just try using any long-established telephone numbers and email addresses you have as these work surprisingly often. Google will then send a recovery verification code to the email or phone and provide details of any accounts associated with them. Now try to sign in to your Gmail account but follow the forgotten password route when offered. This will then kickstart another round of verification codes and then the chance to change to a new password.
Prevention is always preferable to cure and to avoid getting into such a situation again, I would advise using a password manager. This makes it impossible to forget your Gmail account login credentials as they are stored, encrypted and securely by the password manager application either locally or in the cloud.
