Inactive Google Account Policy
A Google Account gives you Google-wide access to most Google products, such as Google Ads, Gmail, and YouTube, using the same username and password.
An inactive Google Account is an account that has not been used within a 2-year period. Google reserves the right to delete an inactive Google Account and its activity and data if you are inactive across Google for at least two years.
Google also reserves the right to delete data in a product if you are inactive in that product for at least two years. This is determined based on each product's inactivity policies.
How Google defines activity
A Google Account that is in use is considered active. Activity might include these actions you take when you sign in or while you’re signed in to your Google Account:
- Reading or sending an email
- Using Google Drive
- Watching a YouTube video
- Sharing a photo
- Downloading an app
- Using Google Search
- Using Sign in with Google to sign in to a third-party app or service
Google Account activity is demonstrated by account and not by device. You can take actions on any surface where you’re signed in to your Google Account, for example, on your phone.
If you have more than one Google Account set up on your device, you’ll want to make sure each account is used within a 2-year period.
What happens when your Google Account is inactive
When your Google Account has not been used within a 2-year period, your Google Account, that is then deemed inactive, and all of its content and data may be deleted. Before this happens, Google will give you an opportunity to take an action in your account by:
- Sending email notifications to your Google Account
- Sending notifications to your recovery email, if any exists
Google products reserve the right to delete your data when your account has not been used within that product for a 2-year period.
December 1, 2023 is the earliest a Google Account will be deleted due to this policy.
Welp, there goes all of my childhood videos and memories from over a decade or so ago. Google, how do you expect people to remember passwords from 15 years ago?
It's a good thing that yt-dlp supports full channel downloads. But this is horrible for old content, probably even worse from the time they privated old unlisted videos.
They will be sparing google accounts with youtube videos uploaded by them as someone else mentioned BUT images/videos on google drive on the other hand...
Edit: oh, the person that mentioned it did it in my other post on the topic lol, there's that person's message:
inb4 they back out of that statement and delete it
Wait, so this is confirmed or is it just your assumption?
It's a bet. I'm sure they'll do it at some point.
Prolly