May 17, 2023
I don't know if any of us can truly grasp how much of the internet will be lost thanks to this single decision.
With this new policy, if a Google account is inactive for more than 2 years, they "may delete the account and its contents – including content within Google Workspace (Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet, Calendar), YouTube and Google Photos."
Think of how many hours of YouTube videos will be lost along with random documents, spreadsheets, drive files, etc. that aren't technically from accounts active in only the last 2 years, but get used all the time by other people.
Starting later this year, we are updating our inactivity policy for Google Accounts to 2 years across our products.