The ever-famous search engine company, Google, started sending out emails and notifications to its users that Gmail, one of the most-used email platforms will start to delete content.
In addition to that, the company also said that Google Photos as well as Google Drive content may suffer a permanent deletion if they do not abide by the latest rules of the company.
The new rules will be effective in June of next year as to force a Google Drive content deletion, among others.
Read: Google Search Advanced Tips and Tricks You Should Know
As per Google’s email, they said that they’re recently announcing new regulations for their storage services.
We are writing to let you know that we recently announced new storage policies for Google Accounts using Gmail, Google Drive (including Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Forms, and Jamboard files) and/or Google Photos that bring us in line with industry practices.”
What Would Happen to Users Who Won’t Comply?
According to Google, all users who will not comply to the changes they’re enforcing could experience having their private content deleted from all the company’s servers.
Google made the reiteration that they will not fail in notifying their users multiple times before the deletion comes into force. This is still siding to users; this will give all of us ample time to comply and to follow the new rules and policies they’ve set.
Moreover, Google stated that accounts that have not been used for two (2) years or have exceeded their storage limit in the same duration will be the ones to experience content deletion.
Read: Safe Folder Feature to Lock Files, Photos, and Other Documents, Launched by Google
Announcing the changes, Google confirmed that if they trace inactive accounts, they may delete it. It’s quite an obvious thing; imagine an account neither being opened nor modified for two (2) years; do you think someone’s still using it?
If you’re inactive for 2 years (24 months) in Gmail, Drive or Photos, we may delete the content in the product(s) in which you’re inactive. If you exceed your storage limit for 2 years, we may delete your content across Gmail, Drive and Photos.”
Current Storage Situation
As of this moment, consumer Google Accounts come with a storage of 15 GB for free. This storage runs across everything – including Gmail, Google Drive and Google Photos.
Announcing the Photo changes, Google posted a blog post that had the following verbatim.
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Today, more than 4 trillion photos are stored in Google Photos, and every week 28 billion new photos and videos are uploaded. Since so many of you rely on Google Photos to store your memories, it’s important that it’s not just a great product, but also continues to meet your needs over the long haul.
As per the company, this is some type of cleansing. They’ll be able to improve and develop the services further as they’ll be able to clean up storages.
In order to welcome even more of your memories and build Google Photos for the future, we are changing our unlimited High-quality storage policy.”
Saving Private Content
I have a lot of private and confidential content on my accounts – will they get deleted? Not yet.
As you can remember, the Google Drive content deletion latest rules will not come into effect until June 2021. Moreover, it will not come into force until June 21, 2023.
Read: How to Auto-Delete All Activity History From Your Google Account
This way, users will have enough time to either upgrade to a higher tier plan or backup the photos, documents, and files they want to save.
The search giant will continue to offer 15GB of free cloud storage in all its servers such as Gmail, Drive and Photos with every Google Account.
So, if you’re concerned about reaching this limit or just want to see how much storage you’ve used across all of the Google services you use, you can visit https://photos.google.com/storage.
This will offer you a better and a full analysis of what you need. In addition, it will also give you an estimate to view it until when you can max out the most of your Google storage.
Related: A Complete Guide on How to Automatically Forward Emails in Gmail
From here, you can either upgrade to a higher tier Google One plan for $19.99 per year for 100GB, $2.99 per month for 200GB, $9.99 per month for 2TB or $49.99 for 10TB or check out one of the best cloud storage services instead. Alternatively, you can also use a cloud backup solution for files you want to keep but don’t regularly access.
What do you think of the Google drive content deletion? How much of your Google storage has been used? Do you think you’ll ever need an upgrade?
It might not be the time now to panic; but doing it earlier can help you avoid mishaps and problems!
Source: Express UK