google has started to delete accounts

Google said if a Google account is inactive for two years, it will be deleted...

...back in 2023. Now it's 2026, and it's finally happening.

I have a few really old email accounts, which includes Yahoo. I get this email from Google saying hey, better login to your Google account or it's getting whacked. I thought it was spam at first, but no, legit. Except there's a problem. I never signed up a Google account using that Yahoo email. I thought okay, fine, I'll just do a "forgot password" thing, Google will send an email, I'll login, delete the account, done deal. Try to do that, but nope, can't. Google system says it doesn't recognize my location as normal for that account. Fine, whatever. I gave up.

Four days later, I receive this:

This was confirmation that I definitely never signed up a Google account with my Yahoo address. The Gmail account listed was a ridiculously long username that I'd obviously never choose, and someone or some bot somehow managed to get my Yahoo address listed there as the backup address, even though I was never notified about this until these emails.

It is normal and almost routine that I get emails from Google for accounts I never signed up for to my Yahoo address. I get between 3 to 5 of these a year, all for different accounts. But this is the first time I've seen an account outright whacked by Google for non-use.

Chances are pretty good this Google account had been dormant for well more than two years, and only now am I seeing real deal account closure notices.

As for whether the associated YouTube channel also gets deleted when a Google account gets whacked for dormancy, Google said, "[...] we do not have plans to delete accounts with YouTube videos at this time."

Again, that was 2023 and it's 2026 now.

As far as I know, Google won't delete an account if it has a YouTube channel with videos.

I think it's best practice that if you have a crusty old YouTube channel with a few videos, but haven't logged into that Google account for a while, go login now. Even if you don't have any videos, you probably want to keep the YouTube username you have, so again, login if you want to keep the account alive.

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