What happens to your Google Data once you die? Here are the details

Have you ever thought what will happen to all your data that is saved on drive or cloud and with services like Apple and Google after you have passed away?

It is interesting to know that Google has thought of this and has a feature that will allow us to decide when it should consider our account to be inactive and what happens with our data afterwards.

If one uses Google services like Google Maps, Gmail, Search, or Google Photos, or simply if you own an Android phone, Google stores several data about you or your habits. Some even save their bank card details and apps to make payments.

This sensitive information on our Google account requires us to create a plan for our Google account data as we might want to share these data with someone who can take care of it all after one has died. Let us tell you how to keep your data safe.

When a person does not use their Google account for months, it goes inactive. Basically when Google detects no activity in an account for a long period, it is turned inactive. However, Google now lets you decide when it should consider your account inactive and what should happen to it and the data after it becomes inactive.

Google gives its users an option to share the account and its data with a person they trust. Or they can also ask Google to delete the account if it becomes inactive.

“We will only trigger the plan that you set up if you haven’t used your Google Account for some time. Tell us how long we should wait for before we do so," Google says.

The good feature is that Google allows users to set up additional waiting time periods for the account to be considered inactive. Once can select up to a maximum of 18 months. Users can visit myaccount.google.com/inactive to manage this. It is important to note that the most authentic and basic thing to do is sharing your passwords with someone you trust.

Once you visit the link, you will first be required to enter the waiting time period for inactivity, email ID, phone number, and more details.

Following this, Google will ask you to choose up to 10 people whom you want to notify when your Google Account becomes inactive and that you are no longer using the account. Users can also give access to some of their data and the option to download it. A trusted Email ID is required for this.

If you don’t want anyone to access your Google account data, then you don’t need to add the email ID of anyone. However, this will mean that your data will get deleted and no one will ever be able to restore it after your account is inactive.

When you add a trusted email, Google will display a list and ask you to choose what all data you want to share with your contact. The list includes Google Pay, Google Photos, Google Chat, Location history, and everything else that a user must have done using their Google account. It is important to note that your trusted contact will have access for only three months after your Google Account becomes inactive. Google will send an email to the trusted contact with a subject line and content that you wrote during setup. Google says that it will add a footer to that email, explaining that you have instructed the company to send an email on your behalf after you’ve stopped using your account.

In case you choose to delete all your data after inactivity, Google will delete everything it has on you. This includes YouTube videos, location history, search history, Google Pay data, and other content. If you pick a trusted contact, the email will contain a list of the data you have chosen to share.