News

A Google Account Purge Is Coming. Will You Be Affected?

In an email and blog post titled, “Updating our inactive account policies,” Google has warned users of the upcoming deletion of inactive accounts.

Published

3 years ago

November 15, 2023

Nour Nasir

a google account purge is coming will you be affected

Google has revealed plans to delete any dormant accounts that haven’t been used over the past two years, starting on December 1st. All messages, photos, and other data will also be wiped during the upcoming purge.

Google’s vice president of product management, Ruth Kricheli, wrote in a blog post that the company is updating its inactivity policy for Google (and Google Workspace) accounts that have not been used or signed into for at least two years, explaining that all content contained in Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet, Calendar, and Google Photos will also be axed — though business and school accounts will be unaffected.

“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,” Kricheli says in the blog post. “Our internal analysis shows abandoned accounts are at least 10x less likely than active accounts to have 2-step verification set up. These accounts are often vulnerable, and once an account is compromised, it can be used for anything from identity theft to a vector for unwanted or even malicious content, like spam”.

Also Read: You Can Now Delete Threads And Keep Your Instagram Account

There are now 1.8 billion active Google account users worldwide, so the upcoming purge could lead to millions of deleted Gmail addresses. Unfortunately, if you expect to find it easier to grab a catchy new address, think again. The company will not release purged Gmail handles back into circulation due to fears they could be used to impersonate their old owners.

Should you be worried about Google’s December 1st plans? You’ll be completely fine if you’ve logged in to a Google account during the last 2 years. However, if you’re paranoid about an old account getting wiped, you should login and send yourself an email for extra peace of mind.

News

At I/O 2026, Sundar Pichai Concedes AI Must Deliver Real Value

Gemini 3.5, a personal agent called Spark, agentic shopping, and Android XR eyewear are all aimed at making AI feel useful, not just impressive.

Published

2 weeks ago

May 20, 2026

Nour Nasir

at io 2026 sundar pichai concedes ai must deliver real value

Google

Google’s annual I/O developer conference (I/O 2026) has recently become a status update on the same question: can the company turn its AI spending into products people use every day? This year, chief executive Sundar Pichai described Google as being in a phase of hyper progress, while conceding this is the part of the cycle where people want to see real value in the products they use on a day-to-day basis.

The strategy on display was to push agents — AI systems that act on a user’s behalf — into nearly every Google product at once. Search now has an “intelligent search box” that returns generated explainer videos alongside links. Gmail, Docs, YouTube and Maps are gaining their own agent layers, including a Docs Live feature that turns spoken instructions into drafted text with citations.

Two new models, Gemini 3.5 and a cheaper Gemini 3.5 Flash, arrived the same day. Google says 900 million people now use Gemini, and that more than 50 billion images have been generated with it. The pricing tier names are likely to confuse buyers: a new AI Ultra plan launches at $100 a month, while the older Gemini AI Ultra drops from $250 to $200.

The flashier announcements were Gemini Omni, a video generator pitched as a more realistic answer to OpenAI’s discontinued Sora 2, and Gemini Spark, a personal agent that handles recurring tasks across a user’s Google account. A new universal shopping cart lets agents complete purchases across multiple retailers from inside Google itself, placing the company between the merchant and the buyer, and also owning the checkout.

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Google also confirmed its Android XR eyewear, built with Samsung and frames from Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Audio-only glasses ship this autumn; a display-equipped version, which would superimpose live translations into the wearer’s field of view, is still in development. Both sets translate, however only the display version shows you the result.

What Pichai did not resolve is the bargain underneath all this. An agent is only useful to the degree it knows your calendar, your inbox, your shopping history and your physical surroundings. Google has now confirmed that, in time, the same context may carry advertising.