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An update to storage policies across your Google Account

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Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#131

Post by netsharc »

rococode wrote: post #67

Yahoo Mail does the same with only a 1 year threshold and regardless of how much data you use. Don't log in for 12 months = lose everything. Sadly found this out the hard way - most of my childhood email accounts were wiped :'( Now they're also disabling email forwarding for free users which I've been relying on for a decade to catch occasionally relevant emails. Might really be forced to shell out the $3.49 a month…

I've had Yahoo Mail since 1995. A year or two ago I noticed all my emails before 2001 were no longer there. Such a great service! /s

I still use that e-mail for online shops, etc. (a bad idea, because I also use it for Facebook, so all the online services that uploaded their customer data onto Facebook has my details courtesy of Zuck). Nowadays Yahoo's web interface keep moaning that I should turn off my ad blocker, and as my little "Fuck you, Yahoo" I keep clicking "No"..

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#132

Post by WalterBright »

ge96 wrote: post #99
cm2187 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My reaction in a similar situation was to rather preserve his privacy. I don't know that mailboxes should be made available to relatives after one dies.

Yeah and it could go both ways. You can try to get something out of it or also what if you're tied to their problems(eg. debt) that would suck. But yeah TL;DR I don't really remember my own father so would be nice to see more of what his life was like.

My parents obsessively kept every family letter, the good, the bad, the sad, even the embarrassing. It's kind of a treasure trove for me. I get to see their take on events I remember. The letters go back well over a century.

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#133

Post by jkingsman »

spullara wrote: post #90
javagram wrote: post #52

Set a reminder every 3 or 6 months to use Google Takeout. Download a full copy of your data to a hard drive in your local possession. If you’re really paranoid, download a 2nd copy and put it on a hard drive that you then leave unplugged from all computers and the internet until the next time. Simple solution for anyone with broadband, and then if you ever lost your cloud data due to subscription lapsing or inactivit…

Is there an automated version of this?

Yes, you can set a scheduled download (I think for up to six months) within takeout and specify the downloads to go to Dropbox or a couple other storage providers.

As someone who does this every month, the downside is that there are often glitches in the export (which they usually catch) and you'll need to set up a new export to get them to try again. In the worst case, I've needed to re-export three times to get them to green flag it as a clean collection without any errors (which sucks when it's a couple days for them to prep it and then another while to actually download and store 300GB of data).

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#134

Post by BHSPitMonkey »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #35
kllrnohj wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the users are inactive they aren't seeing ads. Google isn't a charity, why would they pay for storage that isn't being used? Also, somewhat morbidly, dead people don't really need their photos and emails hosted perpetually.

They don't, but as a society we would all benefit from some way to archive at least some of that. Future historians will curse us for not leaving behind letters, photos, etc. (which is especially ironic given how much more of them we're each generating).

There's already enough publicly-shared content online to keep historians facepalming about this era for centuries to come, without digging into everyone's non-public files.

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#135

Post by sulam »

geek_at wrote: post #130
dataflow wrote: post #4

> "If you're over your storage limit for two years, Google may delete your content across Gmail, Drive and Photos," the company said. That's different from just deleting all your data because you're inactive. Which is it? Edit: it seems both. Here's the blog post (maybe this is a better link): https://blog.google/products/photos/storage-policy-update/

oh damn. I've created an account for my newborn son on my (free) google workspace domain and send him emails every few weeks with updates and photos. He'll receive the account when he's like 12. Will these be deleted too?

It seems you need to actually use the tool, ie, this is a service they're offering, not something they (currently) do without active involvement.

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#136

Post by PlugTunin »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #17
fhrow4484 wrote: post #9

The same happened to my old "...@hotmail.com" email, Microsoft deleted old childhood emails, still bitter about that. Per https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/forum/oemail... , the limit is 365 days of inactivity.

I lost my free Hotmail account of almost a decade when the limit was 30 days.

Yeah, that 30-day window was ridiculous. I lost my hotmail in 2006 after exclusively using gmail for 6 weeks. I'd like to know the origins of the policy. Who decided that if someone goes a few weeks without checking their email that they're either dead or no longer interested in using the internet?

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#137

Post by dantle »

machinelabo wrote: post #100
ryandrake wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Backups and self-hosting! These threads keep coming up where [Cloud service] deletes someone's data, bans their account, or otherwise denies service suddenly, and someone always asks "What [other cloud service] should I utterly rely on?" Maybe the answer is to not rely on cloud services to store the only copy of something precious or important to you.

Any specific packages you recommend for setting up email? I would think there is some docker container I can run in a VM and go about my business.

I've used this for about a year, and it has been stable. Hosted on my home computer.

https://github.com/tomav/docker-mailserver

My emails get rejected from @comcast.net but nobody else as far as I can tell. I haven't figured out a good way to debug the issue. As a result, I am not completely off of free Gmail. If you need your emails to be 100% received on the other end, I would recommend paying a hosting provider.

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#138

Post by WalterBright »

blackrock wrote: post #108
whymauri wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a weird way, it's kinda comforting that other people have felt this. I spent ten (!) years trying to recover my childhood e-mail address which got hacked when I was a kid (password was 1123456789, lol). It was only this year that I _finally_ got to a human support agent who could verify my ID and told me that the account was completely wiped. It was a bittersweet moment, for sure.

Hmm.. that sounds like my password. I should go change it.

> I should go change it.

Too late!

(Seriously, folks, change your password first, then post!)

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#139

Post by jkingsman »

spicybright wrote: post #129
javagram wrote: post #52

Set a reminder every 3 or 6 months to use Google Takeout. Download a full copy of your data to a hard drive in your local possession. If you’re really paranoid, download a 2nd copy and put it on a hard drive that you then leave unplugged from all computers and the internet until the next time. Simple solution for anyone with broadband, and then if you ever lost your cloud data due to subscription lapsing or inactivit…

Wait, what's the danger of keeping your backup on an internet connected machine?

Things that communicate with the web are susceptible to malware and exploit. Offline storage of course can also suffer bit rot/theft/damage, but it erases the possibility of malicious access over the web and makes it that much more secure.

Use the 3-2-1 backup method (3 instances of data, 2 of them not the original (backups), 1 of them offsite). I use cloud backup(s) for my offsite(s) and the remaining backup lends itself to being an external harddrive (or a very well firewalled NAS if it must be on the network).

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