Any benefit to deleting a Google account if I already stopped using it over 6 years ago?

Questions
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When I started de-googling over 6 years ago, I thought it would be a good idea to keep my Google account alive and enable forwarding on Gmail just in case some long-forgotten contact tries to reach me (and I’m glad I did so as I did have a couple of friends from the past email me there). However, it has been years since I received any legitimate emails to my Gmail and I’m thinking of finally deleting my Google account instead of just not using it. I try to think of reasons why I might regret that decision, and a couple of things I can think of:

  • If I come up to a service that is adamant about using a popular email service and not accept Tuta/Proton/Addy/my custom domain address.

  • If I stumble on a YouTube video that I really want to watch. As y’all know YouTube requires signin for age-restricted videos and has been getting strict with alternatives like Freetube.

I have already enabled all of the privacy settings available at myaccount.google.com (disable history, personalization, etc) a long time ago. At this point, is there any additional benefit to actually deleting my account if I’m already not using it? I feel indecisive, so I thought I would ask the community to help me sway one way or the other.

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In my opinion, the question is why wouldn’t you remove it? If there isn’t some really good reason, I would remove it myself as soon as possible.

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That’s pretty much why I made this post: Is there any reason why I shouldn’t delete my account? I gave it some thought and the two things I listed are the only reasons why I might want to keep, but they are not strong enough arguments for me to keep my account alive. So I thought maybe someone will come up with another reason that I was unable to think of for why I might want to keep my account.

I’m also wondering if there are any privacy benefits for deleting an account versus not using it.

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I still use a Google account solely for YouTube browsing. It’s a ‘burner’ account with no personal information, always accessed over a VPN. If you want to keep yours for convenience, like logging into sites without sharing real details, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. The key is being intentional about how and why you use it.

I don’t think that’s true at all, it’s a bit of a misconception that everyone here is inherently “against Google” or any specific service.

This community is about informed choices and understanding trade-offs. If a Google account serves your needs and you’re comfortable with its data practices, there’s absolutely no reason to deprive yourself of a tool you find useful just because of concerns about telemetry.

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Several years ago, Google said they were going to start deleting unused accounts.
Google may have made the decision for you.

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You’re right, I was too harsh.

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uarted, I thought you can not create a Google account (in the US?) without providing a valid cell phone number, which links to personal information? I ask because after “de-Googling”, there have been times that a service would not accept Proton, etc.. (I was able to get around that by creating and using a personal DNS email account.) This does not help on the YouTube issue though.

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I’ve been using various instances of Invidious and some alternative frontends for quite some time without needing a Google account. However, I do have one set up, and I would definitely use it if necessary.

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You can create a Google account without a phone number as long as it’s not from a suspicious IP address (most VPNs)

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That’s super useful actually, thanks.

I thought simply logging in would be enough to make it count as an active account, but apparently that’s not true.

How Google defines activity

A Google Account that is in use is considered active. Activity might include these actions you take when you sign in or while you’re signed in to your Google Account:

  • Reading or sending an email
  • Using Google Drive
  • Watching a YouTube video
  • Sharing a photo
  • Downloading an app
  • Using Google Search
  • Using Sign in with Google to sign in to a third-party app or service

Source: Inactive Google Account Policy - Google Account Help

If I do decide to keep my account alive, I guess once a year I can click on a random YouTube video or make a random search or read one of the many spam emails that I receive on my Gmail.

I’m still wondering if there is any additional privacy benefit to deleting my account though.

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Seriously? When did you last create a Google account that didn’t require a phone number? And did you do it through a web browser or using a phone or tablet?

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I would not advise to delete your google account unless:

  1. You are 100% sure that your account is not tied to any important stuff. You said you haven’t received any legitimate emails but that doesn’t mean you won’t. There could be accounts that you might have missed to transfer. Make sure everything important is transferred.
  2. Many banks or financial services might not allow proton or other email providers. In that case having a separate google account would be good.
  3. Make sure you don’t have any purchases tied to your google account. Ever purchased an app from play store? Well it might be wasted.

If all these points are okay then just delete it.

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This. Especially the first point. I deleted my Google account in 2020 when I started my privacy journey, but I later discovered that there were accounts tied to it (Gmail) that I wasn’t aware of.

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I’m in Brazil so I don’t really know how things work outside of here. I think I did use some of those famous temp phone numbers to set up everything. That was a long time ago though.