Delete digital accounts that you rarely or never use not only reduces the clutter in your online life, but also ensures greater security. Each additional account you have is an additional target for a hacker, an additional database that may be leaked, and an additional way for someone to gain access to some of your larger, more important accounts. If you want to minimize your risk, only open the accounts you need.
Deleting a Google account isn’t difficult or tedious, and Google even lets you download your data first. Keep in mind that deleting a Google account will delete everything associated with your Google username, from the emails in Gmail to the places you have saved in Google Maps to the files that you saved in Google Drive.
It’s also worth noting that Google automatically closes accounts if they haven’t been used for two years, primarily for the security reasons mentioned earlier. If you delete a Google account and find that it already no longer exists, this may be the reason – although Google sends plenty of warnings in advance. If you think this has happened to your account, you can read more about Google’s policy for deleting inactive accounts.
Download your data
Go to your Google account page on the web and you will see one Data and privacy Link on the left: Click to get an overview of all the data Google has about you (which may be more than you thought). Follow the instructions to transfer your data from Google servers to your local computer Download your data Link to bottom of page.
On the next screen you can select the data types you want to export. It includes data from all of Google’s apps and services, including browsing history stored in Chrome, your Google Calendar events, photos and videos in Google Photos, videos you’ve uploaded to YouTube, and your Google Chat logs. It shows you the full extent of all the data that will be deleted when you delete your Google account.
For more heavily used Google accounts, there can be a shocking amount of material here. Use the check boxes to select the data categories you want to download: The Select All And deselect all The options above might be helpful. Below some entries in the list are options that let you choose between different export formats and select specific subsections of data (such as activity categories in Google Fit) to download.
When you are happy with your selection, click Next Step Button. You will then need to choose how you would like to receive your download. You can receive a download link via email or have the archive sent directly to a cloud storage account. You can also set up recurring downloads of the selected data, which you don’t want to do if you delete your Google account.