An update to storage policies across your Google Account • Hacker News Board

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#301

Post by pishpash » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 2:23 AM UTC

whymauri wrote: post #96

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.

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.

What a weird era when we record everything but also let it all get deleted/not be looked at. Maybe curation-on-creation was the right model after all.

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#302

Post by mikem170 » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 2:23 AM UTC

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #260

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, 4.3 petabytes a day . Operating at Google's scale these days is just nuts.

That's mainly media. What's the deal with deleting emails of all things, as if they couldn't support that aspect indefinitely?

Right! Maybe they are cutting email because it is not as profitable.

I agree with the other poster who brought up storage costs not keeping up with growth of stuff to store.

I wonder what this means for youtube...

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#303

Post by pishpash » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 2:26 AM UTC

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/

It's high time for somebody to make an appliance running open protocols that behaves like cloud applications but that is owned and hosted at one's home. Maybe it's what NAS is turning into, but open, and more broadly conceived: for email, chat, etc.

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#304

Post by scrollaway » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 2:26 AM UTC

ValentineC wrote: post #291

fletchowns wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is a free account from way back when (2010 maybe?)

Google deletes legacy Google Apps domains if none of the accounts at that domain are logged into for a year or something. I've received multiple warnings for some of my unused domains.

This I believe only applies to the root/admin account of the GSuite domain. Extra users created in the account are just extra user slots for that account.

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#305

Post by firecall » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 2:27 AM UTC

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?

Not if you are a paid user, I dont think.

So maybe you could become a paid user, then add that account to your family account?

But certainly, you should back that account up. And consider moving to another service.

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#306

Post by mehrdadn » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 2:30 AM UTC

pishpash wrote: post #303

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/

It's high time for somebody to make an appliance running open protocols that behaves like cloud applications but that is owned and hosted at one's home. Maybe it's what NAS is turning into, but open, and more broadly conceived: for email, chat, etc.

I imagine unreliability of home networks just makes this a bad idea for things like email even if you somehow managed to get around all the other obstacles like security/privacy/trust issues (spam, etc.)

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#307

Post by dzonga » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 2:31 AM UTC

I have google one. but honestly, nothing beats having a 1tb external ssd. Better if you've more. The data is yours. & you can plug it any place. no need for internet connection. and you can bury those in the garden for backup.

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#308

Post by scrollaway » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 2:31 AM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #95

ge96 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess my deceased dad's email was deleted(hotmail). I found an old email address of his and was trying to get into it just to reconnect since he died when I was a child. I get shouldn't see other people's stuff but still... would have been interesting as it was in the early 2000's that he was around. Would have liked to see how his mind operated. Afterall he was a successful person (eg. operating a 60ft yacht for s…

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.

For those who actually want to do this on Google, there is a tool called the Inactive Account Manager (not available for GSuite/Google Workspace):

https://myaccount.google.com/inactive

(More info: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3036546)

This utility allows you to give access to a variety of data to another user when your Google account becomes inactive for a configurable long period of time. It also allows you to send certain emails or whatever.

I recommend everyone who uses a Google account checks it out at the very least. It's a hell of a tool.

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#309

Post by ValentineC » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 2:41 AM UTC

scrollaway wrote: post #304

ValentineC wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google deletes legacy Google Apps domains if none of the accounts at that domain are logged into for a year or something. I've received multiple warnings for some of my unused domains.

This I believe only applies to the root/admin account of the GSuite domain. Extra users created in the account are just extra user slots for that account.

I usually don't use the admin account as my main working account, for security.

I believe the Google Apps "target for deletion" process only gets triggered if none of the accounts in a domain are logged into for a period of time.

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#310

Post by pnutjam » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 2:42 AM UTC

snazz wrote: post #192

josephg wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would also suggest yearly doing a full backup of the account: https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout Gmail backup archives are easy enough to load and read in other email programs, if google's storage ever becomes unreliable for you.

Google even lets you schedule them every two months, which works nicely for me.

I do daily backups using the API.