If you’re planning to delete your Gmail account entirely, it’s best to take care of everything connected to it. However, if you don’t know what to do or want to be sure not to miss anything, this article will serve as a guide. In this article, you’ll learn how to delete a Gmail account and what data associated with Gmail will be deleted after you delete your account. Read on!
Table of Contents
What is a Gmail Account?
Before deletion, it’s a safe practice to learn about the anatomy of a Gmail account.
Gmail, or Google Mail, is Google’s email service. After launching in 2004, the company has removed and incorporated numerous features from it. As a result, the current version turns out as well-designed, highly-functional, and cross-platform appropriate.
Similar to other email providers, while creating a new gmail account, you’ll decide on a unique @gmail.com name. Even if you delete it, no one, including you, can reclaim that particular name. Regardless of the status, anyone can still send a message to that email.
Initially, Google popularized the unified sign-in method through the Gmail account. Currently, Apple, Microsoft, and many other tech companies have the same or similar system.
Data That Will Be Deleted With Your Gmail Account
After using a Gmail account for a significant amount of time, many Google services transferred or communicated data to other platforms or individuals. Accordingly, one might wonder if Google will delete these things or not. With this in mind, below are pieces of information about this matter.
Gmail and Hangouts Conversations
After sending messages in Gmail or Hangouts, the mail or chat history will reflect changes. Regarding a deleted account, Google will remove all data, including emails and chats, in the owner’s view. On the other hand, the sender no longer has the authority or ability to view or modify the sent messages on the recipient’s end.
Once the mail arrives in the recipient’s mail server, it will be viewable regardless of whether the sender’s Gmail account is active or deleted. Additionally, all sent emails, from the latest to the oldest, are viewable from their recipients’ inboxes should they didn’t trash them.
YouTube Data
Since Google owns YouTube, a Gmail account must sign in to the streaming platform to use community features and manage a channel. After uploading videos, liking, disliking, posting, and replying to comments, YouTube stores the data to your Google account. Aside from the YouTube dashboard, this platform’s data is also viewable in the Google account panel.
After deleting an account, YouTube will remove all uploaded videos. If a subscriber or another user saved the video for Watch Later, the “Deleted video” text would replace the original title along with the empty thumbnail making it unviewable. Finally, YouTube will eliminate all likes, dislikes, comments, and replies to comments by the account in all videos. Even if a user recovers a deleted account, the streaming platform won’t restore all related data.
Google Calendar Data
In Google Calendar, Google will delete all events, tasks, and reminders of a deleted account. If a user is invited to an event by another account, all data are viewable as per Calendar’s permission. However, if the event owner’s account is deleted, the event will disappear from all invitees. Should it be a custom Google domain account, the administrator can manage or recover shared events made by the deleted account.
Google Contacts and Keep Data
After an account deletion, Google will trash all items saved on Contacts. All contacts, details, stars, and labels, are no longer accessible. It’s recommended you backup and save contacts by exporting all or selected contacts in the service’s web or mobile app.
In terms of the Google Keep service, it will remove all notes, checklists, and recordings following account deletion. As notes might contain sensitive or valuable information, it’s best to backup them before anything else. If a deleted account collaborates on a note or two with another user, all shared items will be unviewable on the other end as well. Considering backups are crucial in a deletion process, read more about it in the next section.
Google Services Data
Like Workplace, Google also uses your Gmail account when you sign-in to its suite of apps. Whether it’s YouTube, Drive, Calendar, Contacts, or Meet, you’ll see your profile icon up top.
While Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms store files on Drive, other Google services’ data is only accessible through their respective portals. Accordingly, when deleting an account, it’s best to check thoroughly where the data are before they are deleted forever. Please remember, when it’s a Google service or app, you’re using your Gmail account as sign-in.
Websites And Applications Sign-in Data
Aside from phone numbers, emails are a popular way to create accounts. Gmail, in particular, takes that to an extent.
Apart from a simple email input, you can use what the company calls Sign-in with Google. What does it do? When you’re in a new service or app, you might see different registering options. Commonly, it would be email, phone number, Sign-in with Facebook, Sign-in with Apple, and Sign-in with Google. After that, the service or app will only require logging in with Google quickly.
Suppose you delete your Gmail account; there’s a chance you’re locked from that account forever. Though, some sites can recognize inactive Google accounts during logins and automatically switch them as email. However, some require verification codes from particular deleted Gmail to change emails or sign-in methods. To avoid issues, please check the sites or apps that use your Gmail account before deletion.
How To Delete A Gmail Account?
Before deleting your Gmail account, we suggest you backup your Gmail account so you don’t lose anything important. After backing up the data and files, it’s now safe to delete a Gmail account. The process looks like this:
1. Visit Google Search, login into your account, and click the nine-dotted menu.
2. Select the “Account” icon.
3. On the “Google Account” page, click the “Data & personalization” item on the left sidebar.
4. Scroll down to “Download, delete or make a plan for your data” and hit the “Delete a service or your account” item.
5. Find the “Delete your Google account” divider and click the “Delete your account” text.
6. Input your account’s password and click the “Next” button.
7. On the “Delete your Google Account” page, read all the information about what will happen to your account.
8. Scroll down to the end and tick the two check-boxes acknowledging your responsibility to the account’s pending transactions and confirming the deletion process.
9. Click “CANCEL” to revoke the process or the “DELETE ACCOUNT” to proceed.
10. Google will display a webpage confirming the successful account deletion.
Congratulations! you’ve successfully deleted your Gmail account and all data associated with it.
Gmail Made Easy: Try Boxysuite for Mac
After creating or recovering your account, you might want a native program to open and use Gmail on a Mac. Since Gmail and many Google services are only accessible as a web app on desktops, numerous open Chrome tabs can be distracting.
While you can minimize windows and tabs, it’s still not ideal for productivity and work efficiency. When using a browser, there are so many things that can divert your attention. As a result, you’ll get less work done.
Acknowledging this problem, we developed Boxysuite. As a native macOS application, you can access and use Gmail, Calendar, Contacts, and Keep more effectively than their web versions. Enjoy a distraction-free workspace for your notes, schedules, and mails.
