Image Credit: Popsci
Got an old Gmail account that has been dormant or unused in the last two years? Perhaps, there is still time to retain your account as Google plans to delete such.
According to the company, “if a Google Account has not been used or signed into for at least 2 years,” it such an account as well as its content will be deleted. Such Gmail account will not only become inaccessible, the messages, Calendar events, Drive, Docs, and other Workspace files will all be gone. While Google is not planning on removing accounts with YouTube videos, Google Photos backups will not be spared.
Google will start deleting affected accounts from December 2023, and will do this by a “phased approach,” beginning with “accounts that were created and never used again.” Google said it is “going to roll this out slowly and carefully.”
“Before deleting an account, we will send multiple notifications over the months leading up to deletion, to both the account email address and the recovery email (if one has been provided).”
Just to be clear; this only affects free Gmail accounts and nothing to do with accounts managed by a business or school.
Still on Gmail, this time on verification, Google is adding a blue checkmark next to select sender’s names on Gmail to verify their identity.
Companies that have adopted Gmail’s Brand Indicators for Messages Identification [BIMI] feature will have the blue checkmark appear next to their names.
The BIMI feature requires senders to use strong authentication and verify their brand logo in order to display a brand logo as an avatar in emails.
When next you want to send an email to a BIMI-enabled user, you will see a checkmark icon appear next to the name. according to Google, this will help users to identify authentic emails from brands.
To find out if a sender is verified, simply hover the blue checkmark over the sender’s name, and a blurb that says “the sender of this email has verified” that they own the domain and logo in the profile image.
A couple of months ago, Google announced that its AI features will be added to a suite of its products including Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Meet Chat and Slides. The features to expect include new ways to generate, summarize, and brainstorm text with AI in Google Docs, generate full emails in Gmail based on a user’s brief bullet points, and the ability to produce AI imagery, audio, and video for presentations in Slides.
