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Tell HN: Google will delete inactive accounts

76 points by logicallee ↗ HN
Bad news for me, I have lots of accounts I set up with forwarding back in the way, as a way to keep control of spam. I want to keep those accounts as they’re important to me even though I didn’t sign into them.

So I was bummed to receive this message about deletion of “inactive” accounts:

https://pastebin.com/fgLUN45V

It makes me sad as I consider all my accounts active.

29 comments

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 77.4 ms ] thread
r_singh
I guess one thing I like like about this new net is that many free accounts isn’t a normal expectation. I hope it remains this way even when interest rates eventually fall.

Isn’t this good because it lowers the barrier of entering businesses like email a little at least? Anyhow I really hope the percentage of people who realise that paying for software is important increases.

What I mean by new net is this phenomenon of needing a cloud account and being tracked to use pretty much all end user software applications and also an increasing number of developer tools (e.g. font awesome). Imagine if every service on the web became paid, it’d be kinda nice and maybe some of our side projects finally become viable haan?

Spooky23
I doubt it’s helping new market entrants. Folks who collect gmail accounts have the opportunity to pay as well.
kccqzy
Why does it mean that these accounts are important to you but you don't sign in?

I suppose perhaps there are sentimental reasons but in that case you might as well do a takeout, download everything, and enjoy whatever is in your account locally.

On the other hand it's extremely easy to satisfy this sign-in requirement. Just set up a mail client that fetches Gmail over IMAP; you don't even have to read any emails.

simplyaccont
"It looks like someone else might be trying to access your Google Account. For your protection, you can’t sign in right now." Been like this for past year or so, on every login attempt.

Good that I never actually used gmail for my real email. Only for some random junk

mdhen
I can recommend simplelogin if you need new spam sign-up emails. Comes bundled with proton mail.
amf12
"The simplest way to keep a Google Account active is to sign in to the account at least once every two years."

Not a terrible requirement. If they are so important to you, why can't you login once every 2 years. Why is it bad news?

tadfisher
I was forwarding Google Voice SMS messages from a second account so I could remain in contact with old friends (I ported my number I've had since high school). The only reason I had to create a second account was because I switched to Google Fi, which forbids your main account from also having a Google Voice account.

Apparently actively using this service does not count as an "active login", because that account was disabled and my number was given to someone else. I only found out when a friend showed me screenshots of my number texting them "who is this?", despite having my main email and phone number as backups for the second account. I cannot get that number back, and support was no help.

devoutsalsa
Just so you know, you can now have Fi and Voice on the same account. Historically what you saying true, but it changed a couple years back.

Source: I had Voice and Fi on the same account.

Rebelgecko
Are people in prison allowed to sign into their Google accounts? I imagine they wouldn't be able to bring 2FA or even a list of backup PWs with them (unless memorized in advance)
m00x
Depends on the prison, but if you're in maximum security prison, you may have bigger worries.
prepend
Certainly you’ll have bigger worries, but you’ll have this one too.
tacostakohashi
Perhaps not - but then again there are lots of things that people in prison are not allowed to do (that's kind of the point).
amf12
> Are people in prison allowed to sign into their Google accounts?

If it's so important to them, maybe their partners or family can login - or they can do a takeout and store their data in a hard drive. Who knows if Google services will be around when they get out, right?

mantra2
> Who knows if Google services will be around when they get out, right?

Sometimes I am not even confident they'll be around tomorrow.

nashashmi
In the old days,hotmail used to have a rule that you had to log in every two months. Going to army training meant you most likely would lose access to your emails after boot camp.

Gmail made it a generous 6 months. I don’t know when it changed to two years.

0xedd
The amount of corpo brainwash in the comments is amazing: "If it's so important... jump through a hoop... and another... and another".

Fact remains - Google is unique in its constraint. It gives no added value over competitors. Why accept?

chaoz_
Researching other options will take some time + the deliverability/spam-detection will only get worse.

You can check e-mail price of "@gmail" on darkweb and compare it against other providers. For them it's a "threshold" to balance security on scale and they're doing a pretty good job imo.

paddim8
Because it's still perfectly reasonable. You simply cannot keep data forever. At some point you have to start removing old unused data. It is just not sustainable. I don't agree with complaining about every single thing corporations do just because they're corporations. Let's complain when they do actually unreasonable things.
garyNeedsa
Downvotes are weird; reality is not a fractal. Humans die; is the future on the hook for fiat and resource costs to store our cat photos?

Religion and longtermer philosophy get thought and agency policing really fast. It’s funny it’s often political traditionalists who seek preservation but refuse to point out the established socio-political norm that obliges humanity to specifically back up dead peoples hard drives.

hsjqllzlfkf
> You simply cannot keep data forever.

I wonder if the data that they're collecting for targeting advertising is also being deleted, because you know you can't keep it forever, right? Oh that's right, of course they're not deleting that. Stop parroting corporate talking points.

paddim8
They keep that as long as it's useful. At some point they're going to have to start removing old data there as well, but it's probably mostly text and numbers. This is just pure whataboutism. Explain to me how keeping a ton of data forever is in any way realistic? How would you go about doing that?
dangus
They’re not unique. I’ve had plenty of free account providers deactivate me from disuse. Example: Shutterfly

Don’t want your account to be deleted? Try using it or getting a paid service.

OP wants to use a bunch of gmail accounts for spam forwarding but they should get a proper paid email provider that supports aliasing.

ottoludd
The conspiracy theorist in me wonders if this is a means of preventing other companies from using YouTube videos to train AI. Google will have access to the whole of YouTube uploads, whereas the rest of the world will only have access to the videos that were uploaded by active accounts.
CTOSian
btw , they mention a couple of exceptions to this policy, YMMV

* Your Google Account contains a gift card with a monetary balance. * Your Google Account has been used to purchase a digital item, for example, a book or movie.

yomlica8
So can you send a small gift card to your accounts to keep it active?