Google is about to begin deleting inactive Google accounts, which could mean you’re about to lose photos, documents, and other data that you actually want to keep. The good news is that there’s a way you can safely hold onto everything, but you’ll need to take action this week to be sure. First, let’s take a step back to remind ourselves exactly what’s happening here. Earlier this year, Google announced that from December 1, 2023, it would begin deleting accounts that haven’t been signed into for two years. The action is part of broader measures to bolster online security. Google said that an account that hasn’t been used for an extended period of time is much more likely to be compromised, giving hackers access to your personal data, as well as enabling them to potentially steal your identity and target you in scams. The policy only applies to personal Google accounts and does not impact Google accounts for schools and businesses. As part of the purge, inactive accounts and all personal information and data linked to the accounts will be erased, including Gmail messages, Calendar events, Drive, Docs, other Workspace files, and Google Photos backups. If you have a Google account that you want to keep and it’s at risk of deletion because it’s been a long time since you last logged into it, there are steps you can take to save the account and the data that it contains. The simple way to retain your Google account is by signing into it- or any associated Google services like YouTube and Gmail- right now. With at least one sign-in every two years, your Google account will be considered active and will not be deleted. With security at the heart of the purge, and Google pointing out that abandoned accounts are at least 10 times less likely than active accounts to have 2-step-verification enabled, the advice is to set up 2-step-verification on your Google account (and on all your other accounts, for that matter) to make it harder to hack. Musicians could soon be able to remix the songs that they upload to YouTube thanks to an experimental AI tool currently rolling out to select content creators. The new tool is built atop YouTube’s Dream Track, which was released last year and enables users to compose songs based on text prompts and by using prerecorded vocals. Charli XCX, Demi Lovato, John Legend, Sia, T-Pain, and Charlie Puth have all signed on for the use of their vocal likenesses. No, Russia didn’t hit Google with a $23 million fined. It fined Google the equivalent of 23,809,523 times all of the money that exists on Earth. The Kremlin slapped Google with a $2.5 decillion fine, according to The Moscow Times. That’s $2,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 or for the nerds among us, 2.5 × 1021. Yes, I had to pull out the scientific notation just to wrap my head around the number. In probably the grossest example of an understatement of all time, The Moscow Times says that Google is “unlikely to ever pay the incredibly high fine,” noting that Google parent company Alphabet reported revenue of just $307 billion last year. I guess when we’re dealing with phony numbers that have no right to exist, 307 billion really doesn’t seem like much. Email scams are nothing new. The old Nigerian prince con has been around long enough that it’s become a meme, but more modern scams can be a lot harder to pick out. According to statistics, nearly 3.4 billion phishing emails are sent per day. Gmail will soon implement a feature on its mobile platform that puts a checkmark beside verified senders to help users tell what’s legit — and what possibly isn’t — at a glance. The feature already exists on the Gmail desktop website, but with over half of all users accessing their Gmail accounts from a mobile app, it’s a welcome addition. It utilizes a standard called Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) and a Verified Mark Certificate (VMC). If an email contains these marks, it’s highly unlikely they come from a malicious source.

Google is about to begin deleting inactive Google accounts, which could mean you’re about to lose photos, documents, and other data that you actually want to keep. The good news is that there’s a way you can safely hold onto everything, but you’ll need to take action this week to be sure. First, let’s take a step back to remind ourselves exactly what’s happening here. Earlier this year, Google announced that from December 1, 2023, it would begin deleting accounts that haven’t been signed into for two years. The action is part of broader measures to bolster online security. Google said that an account that hasn’t been used for an extended period of time is much more likely to be compromised, giving hackers access to your personal data, as well as enabling them to potentially steal your identity and target you in scams. The policy only applies to personal Google accounts and does not impact Google accounts for schools and businesses. As part of the purge, inactive accounts and all personal information and data linked to the accounts will be erased, including Gmail messages, Calendar events, Drive, Docs, other Workspace files, and Google Photos backups. If you have a Google account that you want to keep and it’s at risk of deletion because it’s been a long time since you last logged into it, there are steps you can take to save the account and the data that it contains. The simple way to retain your Google account is by signing into it- or any associated Google services like YouTube and Gmail- right now. With at least one sign-in every two years, your Google account will be considered active and will not be deleted. With security at the heart of the purge, and Google pointing out that abandoned accounts are at least 10 times less likely than active accounts to have 2-step-verification enabled, the advice is to set up 2-step-verification on your Google account (and on all your other accounts, for that matter) to make it harder to hack. Musicians could soon be able to remix the songs that they upload to YouTube thanks to an experimental AI tool currently rolling out to select content creators. The new tool is built atop YouTube’s Dream Track, which was released last year and enables users to compose songs based on text prompts and by using prerecorded vocals. Charli XCX, Demi Lovato, John Legend, Sia, T-Pain, and Charlie Puth have all signed on for the use of their vocal likenesses. No, Russia didn’t hit Google with a $23 million fined. It fined Google the equivalent of 23,809,523 times all of the money that exists on Earth. The Kremlin slapped Google with a $2.5 decillion fine, according to The Moscow Times. That’s $2,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 or for the nerds among us, 2.5 × 1021. Yes, I had to pull out the scientific notation just to wrap my head around the number. In probably the grossest example of an understatement of all time, The Moscow Times says that Google is “unlikely to ever pay the incredibly high fine,” noting that Google parent company Alphabet reported revenue of just $307 billion last year. I guess when we’re dealing with phony numbers that have no right to exist, 307 billion really doesn’t seem like much. Email scams are nothing new. The old Nigerian prince con has been around long enough that it’s become a meme, but more modern scams can be a lot harder to pick out. According to statistics, nearly 3.4 billion phishing emails are sent per day. Gmail will soon implement a feature on its mobile platform that puts a checkmark beside verified senders to help users tell what’s legit — and what possibly isn’t — at a glance. The feature already exists on the Gmail desktop website, but with over half of all users accessing their Gmail accounts from a mobile app, it’s a welcome addition. It utilizes a standard called Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) and a Verified Mark Certificate (VMC). If an email contains these marks, it’s highly unlikely they come from a malicious source.