Hi everyone, I have an old Google account that I don’t use anymore, and I’m thinking about deleting it. But I’m worried I may have used that email address for government services or other important accounts in the past, and I don’t want to overlook something that could cause problems later.
What should I check before deleting it? Do you have similar experience?
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Eh, they already have your data and i doubt they actually delete it. it’s better to just keep it and use it for things that you already used it for.
@cybermonkey @ovi they have data to some point. After deleting they stop receivimg fresh data to update profile so with time it would be less and less accurate.
But it’s the same thing. You keep the account but don’t use unless for the things you already used it because they already have that data anyway and like i said i doubt they delete it, not just google but most popular services are like that; you’re just deleted from the public records but in their servers all your data is probably still there and who knows, profiting from it. Instead of deleting and never being able to access your account, you can just keep it.
Don’t. The signup procedure requires a smartphone now, so it might be useful to have another gmail id if you need it, without further compromising your privacy.
Yep exactly this. Creating a new account is a pain in the ass. Every now and then you’ll likely still run into some annoying services that refuse to accept anything but a “well known” email provider because we live in hell. Plus you might still have some old things tied to that account that may be needed in the future.
Set up email forwarding and then just keep it around in case you need it
Why not retain it? It won’t cost anything, and you might find a use for it eventually (I use my GMail account for automated testing of my email server).
And if you don’t trust Google to safeguard your data, delete just the data.
i can see how leaving as an black hole, where msgs go in but never get response, can be a type of obfuscation, conceptually.
i wonder if the filter rules can also be used to bounce back all msgs that arrive, without deleting the acct…nope, checked
Check your password manager. What other accounts is the e-mail address account linked to? Change it, then delete the account.
If you don’t have a password manager: Now is the time to get one. I recommend KeepassXC (PC, cross-platform) / KeepassDX (Android). Combine with Syncthing for cloudless cross-device sync of the password database file.
Also, don’t worry too much. You wouldn’t be the first to lose access to an e-mail address. Governments or “other important accounts” usually have procedures to deal with that issue. But: a Google account shouldn’t be linked to anything important anyway, let alone government accounts.
Thank you
I heard keepass was going hard on the AI. Is that true? I can’t find much about it tbh.
If so, that’d make me nervous for a pw manager. If not, then it seems like a legit option.
I recommend https://codeberg.org/ChiPass/ChiPass as a fork without AI.
I heard keepass was going hard on the AI. Is that true? I can’t find much about it tbh.
I can’t tell you much about that, other than
- I’ve never heard about that
- they haven’t got an agents.md or similar giveaway files in their Github repo that suggest they do
- they do have a short paragraph about GenAI in their Github that reads:
Generative AI is fast becoming a first-party feature in most development environments, including GitHub itself. If the majority of a code submission is made using Generative AI (e.g., agent-based or vibe coding) then we will document that in the pull request. All code submissions go through a rigorous review process regardless of the development workflow or submitter.
Personally, I don’t mind devs using GenAI if it’s used in a responsible fashion, i.e.
- it is used to support software engineering, not replace it: any actual creative / design work is done by humans, GenAI is only there to help with simple, but tedious tasks (writing smaller, easy-to-review code snippets, unit testing, etc.).
- there’s a human at the helm, meaning: every line of code is human-reviewed.
Also, I tend to trust projects more whose code base started long before GenAI was a thing. Typically, these have a large base of maintainers and contributors, and the people contributing code know what they’re doing. This is certainly true of Keepass.
All fair I suppose, just wondering. Thanks for the reply!
So, I have a non Google, non Microsoft, and non apple email account.
- Main alias is only used to login.
- 2nd alias is my main for family & friends if needed (no SM so this is for invites, etc)
- Next alias is used for forwards from anything from my old hotmail (mostly for Xbox), gmail, etc. This way I know it’s not important, but it’s “accessible”. Plus, not MS nor Screwgle know my real email address.
- My junk aliases (3) is for any Sign ups, accts, etc. Mostly 1 for financial stuff, 1 for utilities, bills, insurance, one for anything else.
Yes, in total, I have at least 6 email account aliases, but it helps to mitigate companies building data profiles on me, and also helps to know who sold what data if spam picks up.
Edit: OHHH Don’t lemme forget, I have an old Classic Outlook setup from an old computer. Before I quit using these old email accounts, I configured as IMAP in Outlook and them exported to a .pst file. Now all my old email is in an archive file if I ever need to refer back to it.
Yes
If you don’t know all of your accounts made with this account, you might want to wait for 2-3 years to get mails about accounts you forgot about. I think it’s safe after that point. I did this before I finally delete my Google account and actually got some mails like these.
There is probably a way migrate or at least export your contacts and email history so that you save any important conversations or contacts for future reference.
In my experience, most places have been understanding and updated my contact when I said I was registered with an old email address that I no longer have access to. If it’s a government service they’ll have other information of yours that you can verify yourself with. Make a note of deleted account names in case they are needed for verification.
If you’re really uncertain, you could set up forwarding to your new email address and retain the old one for some time without using it before you delete.
