Always make sure you have strong single point of failure on the web.
Also weigh the cost of doing local backups against that point.
Also keep in mind that everything will be lost at some point..
An update to storage policies across your Google Account
141–150 of 427 posts
Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account
#142Dupe from a month ago, with multiple 300+ comment threads: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25060973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25081350 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25060882
HN crowd feels like they are on a jihad against Google. Pretty much every other email provider does it. This is a free service that they are not paying. But yet they like to keep bashing on Google.
Honestly, the entitlement is baffling.
The HN crowds hold Google accountable to exploit their data, at the same time, when Google declares their data as liability and no longer wants it, they act like cry babies.
Grow up.
Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account
#143> "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?
I don't know but I would suggest (at least) logging into the account and doing something (uploading a file, sending an email, etc.) every year.
Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account
#144What's another good email provider? I am starting to feel really nervous about storing my life in Google. It's not that I wouldn't pay for these things...it's just that I worry one day I'll lose access and fall into the pit of "trying to get Google to help a single human regain access" that sounds horrible.
LuxSci is pretty good. They're oriented towards HIPAA-compliant solutions, but they're fine for anyone who doesn't want Google rifling through all their emails (of course, if the other party uses Gmail, you're out of luck either way).
Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account
#145Set 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?
Ransomware, for one. Bugs. Accidents.
In general, it's good security practice to keep a set of backups offsite, and disconnected.
Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account
#146Deadman switch activated. Let's just say Google doesn't delete your data they just orphan your access to the data with the assumption that you have abandoned the account, this is the great culling. All the people who have died their data must have been absorbed enough that Google doesn't think keeping the emails around is worth it.
Will someone build us a way to heartbeat our Google accounts to keep them prevent them from timing out?
Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account
#147It can be worse. I got a letter recently from a mutual fund saying I'd done nothing with my account for years, and if they didn't hear from me soon, they were going to hand it over to the government.
(I'm a buy and hold, hold, hold, hold, investor.)
Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
They promised 1GB, had a counter that slowly increased and thens settled at 15GB, as I remember.
Sure, but I’m right now paying for 1TB space, and I can easily forget for example if a credit card expires. Google makes enough money from my subscriptions to at least write my data to a tape when I stop paying, so that I can access it again even 10 years later when I start paying again.
Forget and never logged into an account for 2 years? If you don't need to log into an email account for 2 years you don't need the data.
Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account
#149Set 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…
This is what I do. (With the extra step of also encrypting the data.)
Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account
#150The 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.
Also a massive security hole. I needed to do a password reset on my old ebay account, but the hotmail account it was attached to was deleted, so I just created a new hotmail account with the same name, and reset my password. I've done this maybe three or four time, because I haven't used hotmail since high school, so they keep deleting it. A lot of people also have password resets on gmail linked to their old hotmail…
Definitely! A while back Yahoo! purged a ton of addresses and allowed individuals to signup with them to get unique/clean email handles.
I was able to grab myfirstname@yahoo.com. The address looks neat.
Since I’ve had that address, I’ve received password reset emails, bank documents, airline tickets and what not.
Massive security hole is an understatement.