What if i forget to delete some old accounts associated with the google email address? Will someone be able to take control of them? And my data will be there forever too.
What method do you use to find the old accounts to delete? Unfortunately i delete all emails after receiving them.
99.99999% chance the answer is no. Not even Google is stupid enough to do that.
No, once you delete a Google account it can never be used again, by anyone (link).
I use a password manager (KeePass XC/DX) to track all of my accounts.
In your situation, I would update whatever accounts you do know about to the new email address you intend to use. Set Gmail to forward emails to this account too, and then stop using Gmail for everyday mail. Leave your Google account active for a year and see if any issues crop up.
Just replying to my own comment to say that folks should think very carefully about switching to a personal domain name for email, for the very reason mentioned by the OP.
What if your domain registration lapses and someone else grabs it? What if you can’t afford the cost five years from now? What if you just don’t like the domain name someday? All of these reasons will be problematic and some can result in identity theft and significant fraud. It’s definitely not a decision to be taken lightly, particularly if you have a lot of online accounts.
What if your domain registration lapses and someone else grabs it?
Registrars do warn quite a bit but indeed you can add a yearly notification 1 week ahead in your calendar.
What if you can’t afford the cost five years from now?
You are in quite deep trouble then because the registrar itself is relative cheap, e.g $10/year. It also does not seem to increase significantly. If you can’t afford that you probably should focus on basic necessities first. If you are serious about it though, just like with the yearly notification, set $1/month just for this.
What if you just don’t like the domain name someday?
I mean… you change it? Just like when you went from person@gmail.com to person@mydomain.tld . That process is a bit annoying but as you’ve done it once, it will be easier.
All of these reasons will be problematic and some can result in identity theft and significant fraud. It’s definitely not a decision to be taken lightly, particularly if you have a lot of online accounts.
It’s not a light decision BUT it’s also not such a big deal. If I want to go back to person@gmail.com I can just do so any moment I want (well person-something@gmail.com to be precise). I will keep a 1 year grace period for the transition, start with the most critical accounts first, e.g government and banking then social media, then random accounts based on my history. It’s annoying but it’s a matter of hours over few weeks at most.
The only challenge is to be methodical and giving up on the idea that you’ll update 100% of the account. Getting 99% of the account that truly matter is enough IMHO.
PS: for actually sensitive data, and assuming you somehow didn’t manage to get the grace period YET still are smart enough to think ahead, multi-factor authentication will keep your accounts safe. Honestly I don’t think the overlap though between somebody who cares enough about that AND let’s domain expire is very big though.
Not exactly the same scenario, but close enough for proof of concept.
Like the other guy said, there’s no immediate need to delete the account. And someone else wont be able to pick the address up after you, if you do.
I’ll probably leave google eventually, as well, but I don’t intend to delete my account. The process of using google services less and less has been ongoing for years for me, and I will just use them less and less, until I no longer do at all.
Where email is concerned, I’ll just have whatever my new email is pull in my mail from gmail for a while, and as I receive email concerning various accounts to my gmail, that’s when I’ll go in and change them over to use my new address so the old inbox gets less and less mail.
Then, eventually, when I haven’t touched it for years, I might take the final step of actually deleting it. But probably not.
When I migrated emails last time, I setup my old email to automatically forward to the new email. Then on my new email, I setup an automatic label for any email that was addressed to the old address. Every week or two I’d review what was sent to it and either update the email address used or unsubscribe. Eventually it got to a level where I wasn’t getting much at the old email anymore and finally deleted it.
Why delete the account? There’s no harm is just leaving it and not using it anymore.
To not rely on it anymore? Not be tempted?
I suggest to delete it but giving yourself a grace period, e.g 1 year where you redirect emails until you are sure you updates most people and services accordingly. After that period, better to delete and this way hope that Google doesn’t have any of your data anymore.
Gmail really is a drug, huh?
Nobody goes like" Oh fuck I can’t take it anymore I just need another hit of Google Lens"
Keeping accounts for key services is a smart idea because at least you will always be able to take control if you need to. Also identity theft gets harder
Look at /r/deGoogle and you will, sadly, see a lot of people that have a problem stopping.
A typical example is how services from Google, e.g Google Docs, Meet, etc do everything they can to avoid not logging in, and while having to do so, prefer to use a GMail acccount, or “at least” a Google account (which might not require a GMail email).
So… a drug no but a dependency hard to ignore for a lot of people, the same way some people feel “forced” to use WhatsApp.
You are extremely privileged if you never felt that way.
I took degoogling as an opportunity to review and purge a lot of accounts and actually hold myself to going through the GDPR data removal requests and all that. I refreshed passwords and emails of accounts I actually wanted to keep, and pretty much ditched the rest. If the account never made it into my password manager in the first place it clearly wasn’t very important, so it can bounce around cyberspace forever I guess.
There’s a couple things you could try.
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Open up an incognito browser window, and Google your email address. It will usually show you relevant accounts (I.e. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.). You could also search your name and see if any accounts come up that way.
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Check out OSINT Framework. It’s a very useful tool for remediating your digital footprint.
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I have found, several years after deleting my Google accounts, that any accounts I missed, can be fixed with an email to support explaining I no longer have access to that gmail account. Sometimes I have to provide some understandable proof like an old purchase detail. The one or two accounts that didn’t have good support to help, were no real loss to create a new account for.
I setup a mail forward, and check the ‘to’ address to all incoming messages for about a year.
If you suspect you might have account (and you remember where it is), try account recovery by email in question to delete it later, you’ll either get bounced or get recovery email 🧐
