In an attempt to reduce the number of inactive accounts, Google has announced that starting December 1st, they will start deleting email accounts that have been inactive for two years or more. So, if you are in possession of an old email id that you do not want to lose, you should log into the account before the 1st of December, or stand to lose your account forever.
“If an account hasn’t been used for an extended period of time, it is more likely to be compromised,” Google noted. “This is because forgotten or unattended accounts often rely on old or re-used passwords that may have been compromised, haven’t had two factor authentication set up, and receive fewer security checks by the user.”
Google has announced that the will be identifying inactive email ids and sending them a notification email on those ids. If the user logs into the account, then the account will be saved. If there is no log in, the account will be deleted. However, just logging in is not enough. You will have to perform some actions to show that you are indeed interested in keeping the id. You can so anything from accessing your Drive, watching a YouTube Video using that id, and the account will be safe from the purge.
Microsoft has also performed a similar purge in the past, deleting inactive Outlook/Hotmail accounts that have been inactive for more than two years.
If you are someone who has an old email id that you do not want to lose, you should log into the account right now.
