Watch out! Google might just delete your dormant account permanently
Remember those good old days when we use to keep albums of photos and flip through it on a summer vacation day? Those were the days – lucid and void of fancy technology.
Technology has taken over our lives in many ways. These days most smartphones have excellent cameras with multiple lenses. And because of the manifold increase in the use of mobile phones over the last decade, our photos now end up in a folder on our desktops rather than a photo album.
Every coin has its two sides – and so while tech advances like these have made it easier than ever to document memories, trips or funny moments there are equal or more downsides to that equation; your memories can also get wiped out with a flick of the wrist — or a closure of an account.
And imagine someone telling that your account will be deleted permanently without you having to play any role in it. Worrisome, right? Let us look at what Google has in store — and why.
Check out your Google Drive — or else
If you too are used to your photos getting automatically stored in Google photos, you are going to want to take note of a new warning. Last month, Google began notifying some users by email that their Gmail, Google Drive and Google Photos content is at risk of being permanently deleted.
The warning is sent to users whose storage capacity is currently exceeding Google’s new cloud storage policy changes, officially going into effect June 1, 2021.
As part of the changes taking place in Google Storage Policy, any content you create with Google’s services — be it with Gmail account, Google Drive or Google Photos — will count against your allotted storage space.
As we all are aware, Gmail alone can take up a huge chunk of storage space. That means if you are using a free account and multiple Google services, it is probably time for you to buy additional storage or switch some of your content on alternate platform.
If you think you might be at risk of deletion because you are exceeding the new limits, don’t panic. The June 1, 2021 deadline gives you about six months to cut down on your storage usage. And that will take place only after Google has sent multiple notifications about their storage usage before shutting down their accounts.
However, the users are not quite happy with this change in the Storage Policy. In terms of the old policy, the users could upload an unlimited number of photos for free with the only condition that they had to be saved as high quality instead of original to cut down on storage.
Not anymore, though! Google users with free accounts only have an allotted 15GBs of free storage space.
Who is at risk of having their accounts deleted?
Google is planning to deactivate accounts that have been dormant for a long time.
Google said in a blogpost, “People are uploading more content than ever before—in fact, more than 4.3 million GB are added across Gmail, Drive, and Photos every day.”
If you have not used any of the google apps with internet connection for more than 2 years, then you may lose your important data.
According to the new policy, which will be effective from June 1, 2021, Google will delete data of dormant Google account by June 1, 2023. The data saved on Drive, Sheets, Docs, Slides, Gmail, Jamboard, Photos, Forms, Drawings and Google Sites will be under the radar.
What can you do to save your account?
In order to protect your account, just make sure that you frequently use any of the Google applications like Gmail, Google Drive, Google Photos on your web browser or using the mobile apps.
However, Google has assured its users that no data will be deleted without a prior notice to the account holder. It has further stated that it will notify the users multiple times before removing any of the users’ content. Just keep an eye out on your data that you have saved in your account.
