Although many might think of it as the ultimate data-gobbling corporation, Google is actually on something of a data-deleting purge right now. Here’s what users of Gmail, Google Photos and Google Maps need to know if they want to save theirs.
Like many others, I have been in receipt of emails from Google recently that inform me unless I take action my Google Maps Timeline data will be deleted in 2025. The precise date varies from user to user, but I’ve had emails warning me of both May and June deadlines on different Google accounts I hold. The Google Maps Timeline feature used to be known as your location history, containing both saved visit and route data.
The reasoning appears to be security-related, which is no bad thing: the Timeline location history feature is being relocated from Google’s cloud servers to on-device where it can benefit from the improved security protections your smartphone offers for such data.
Visit your Timeline, and you’ll see a popup informing you of the forthcoming changes. The fix to ensure you keep your location history data is simple enough, according to Google itself: “Since the data shown on your Timeline comes directly from your device, Timeline won’t be available on Maps on your computer after you move your data. To move your data to your device, download the Google Maps app.”
I recommend clicking the “learn more” option on the Timeline popup as this will tell you all you need to know to save your Google Maps location data.
Regular readers will be aware that Google has also been quite clear that Gmail data, photos and docs will also be up for deletion following a change to the inactive Google account policy 2023. Google accounts that have not been signed into for at least two years will be deleted, along with the data stored by those account holders. Like the Google Maps Timeline deletions, the Google account purge is also being implemented for security reasons. Google said that internal analysis had shown, for example, that long inactive accounts were “at least 10x less likely than active accounts to have 2-step verification set up,” and so more likely to be compromised than active ones.
“As we shared in our blog post, this update is rolling out gradually,” a Google spokesperson said, “This means people will see different deletion deadlines, approximately six months from when they were first notified about this change to their account.”
To ensure your Google accounts are not deleted, if you have more than one of course, is simple enough—just use them. This means signing into the accounts in question or, according to Google, meeting any of the following activity requirements:
Posting to the Gmail subreddit on Dec. 25, a user wanted to know if there was any way to recover a Google account without knowing the password. The good news is that, yes, there is. The bad news, however, in their case is that it likely won’t help as they didn’t set a recovery phone number and can’t remember the email recovery address either. The user asked if they could submit proof of identity some other way, and the bad news for them, but better news for privacy and security-minded users out there is no, there is not. Proof of ID is not proof of account ownership, after all. I could open an account using the same name as someone else, and given the number of people on this planet, it’s highly likely that’s the case. So, how do you recover an inactive Google account that you’ve forgotten the password for?
The good news for anyone who can’t remember their Google account password, or even those for whom an attacker has compromised the account and changed the passwords, phone numbers and even passkeys to prevent the genuine account holder from regaining access, is that all is not lost. You can still save that inactive account from deletion, but you’ll need to act fast. I spoke to Google’s Gmail spokesperson, Ross Richendrfer, who deals with workspace security and privacy matters, for advice.
“We recommend all users to set up a recovery phone as well as a recovery email on their account,” Richendrfer said, “these can be used in cases where users forget their own passwords, or an attacker changes the credentials after hijacking the account.”
If you have forgotten your account password, then head straight to the Google Account recovery process page and enter the phone number or recovery email associated with the account. If you can’t remember them, don’t panic: use any phone number you do remember, ditto email address, that you’ve used in the past as these will often come through. Google will then send a recovery verification code to the email or phone and provide details of any accounts associated with them. Once you get this far, try to sign in and then follow the forgot my password route, which will start off another round of verification codes but end up with you regaining access to your account.
The only exception to this advice is for those who have taken the decision to activate the Advanced Protection Program for their Google account. While this is highly recommended for people who are at greater risk of attack, journalists, political activists, public figures and the like, it does make account recovery necessarily more complicated, and there would be many more time-consuming hoops through which to jump. That said, it’s improbable an account with this kind of protection would be an inactive, let alone forgotten, one.
It’s Easy To Manage Multiple Google Accounts On The Same Device—Here’s How
Managing multiple Google accounts on the same device might sound like a nightmare of gargantuan proportions, but the fact is that couldn’t be further from the truth: it’s easy and, quite honestly, essential to prevent any chance of data deletion.
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