There are lots of advantages to storing your files online. It means you can access them from anywhere, sync their content across devices and protect your data against theft, malware and hard-drive corruption. But it’s easy to forget that when you upload or create something in the ‘cloud’, it doesn’t solely belong to you, but also to the company that provides the storage space.
Most services have strict privacy policies that promise to respect your data, but what if they start deleting your files without your permission? That’s exactly what Google is doing from 1 December, when it begins its purge of inactive accounts.
Google announced its plan back in May – it was our lead news story in Issue 659 (page 6) – to give users time to reactivate their idle accounts. But with the deadline almost upon us, there’s still a lot of confusion about what’s happening – which is why it’s essential to take action now.
Even if you use your main Google account every day, you probably have at least one other account you haven’t accessed for a while, which contains important photos, documents, music and emails.
In this feature, we explain how to protect your precious data, by keeping your accounts active and rescuing your files before it’s too late. We also reveal why Google is deleting accounts, and look at other companies with similar policies about inactive accounts.
YOUR GOOGLE ACCOUNT QUESTIONS ANSWERED
What’s happening to your Google account?
From 1 December, Google will start deleting inactive user accounts and all the files and other data stored in them. The policy only applies to free, personal Google accounts, not those used by businesses and schools, but will affect your content in many Google tools including Drive, Docs, Gmail, Photos and Sheets.
How does Google define an inactive account?
Google’s updated Inactive Google Account Policy (www.snipca.com/48100) defines ‘inactive’ as an account that has not been used or signed into in the last two years (see screenshot right).
Evidence of activity includes actions such as opening or sending an email in Gmail, uploading or sharing files in Google Drive, watching videos on YouTube, installing Android apps from the Google Play Store, searching the web with Google, and using ‘Sign in with Google’ (see page 55) to access third-party apps and services.
Activity is judged by account and not by device. This
