Google just released their inactive account manager which lets you decide what to do with your account if your accounts are not active for a set period of time. It lets you give access to someone else and let’s them access your data, and presumably, the feature is for those who pass away and want to give access to loved ones or to people to whom the account holds some value or importance.
I decided to set it up, because why not? There’s no harm, I plan on having my Google account for a long time, and if something catastrophic were to happen, someone should have access to all of my data. Google is an integral part of my life, with all my email, pictures, and voicemails stored somewhere.
Naturally, I gave access to Lauren, my wife. Of course I included a message for her with instructions for all my accounts.
The Inactive Gmail Letter To My Wife
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To My Dearest Lauren,
I’m so sad that you have to receive this email. It can only mean one of two things:
1. I’m no longer here with you.
2. I’ve changed my email address and forgot to remove this setting.
Hopefully it’s the latter, in which case text my iPhone 9 (not my iPhone 8S, that’s for work only!) and tell me to check my account and turn this thing off.
This is basically all the information I once thought was important. The truth is that very little of it is, but if I am really gone, you should read my Blogger posts. It will help you miss me a little bit less, the quality of the writing is really terrible.
The pictures are what you should download and keep somewhere safe, but hopefully I trained you well and they’re already on your computer, hard drive, and in several clouds.
Finally, please make sure my Google+ page remains active. I can only assume my Google+ page was my most prized possession. I know it may look completely inactive, but just wait, this thing has over 350 million users so I’m sure it’ll be huge by the time you read this.
Please go watch our wedding video one more time, hopefully you’ve converted this into 3D format so that you can really experience it again: https://ahavafilms.com/lauren-daniel/
Love,
Daniel
I’ve seen this as well. Six months is too long to wait to pass important information along. Every month I make a copy of a spreadsheet that I have every bit of financial information including links to all accounts and login information. She knows the password to that file and if anything were to ever happen to me, she would have that information to get things rolling.
I’m sure Lauren will be really touched by the personal, in depth, and romantic quality of the last message to her. You probably should also add a section that begins with “I’m sorry for … ”
The problem may be that Google will not provide you with adequate space for everything that goes after the ellipsis.
I didn’t even know about this one. Nice feature and I will probably set it up with my wife as well. If I am not using it for 6 months, then something happened.
I had not heard about this and think it’s a brilliant idea. If I had not used my Gmail for six months, then something is definitely amiss.
I doubt that e-mail will ever be sent. ;-)
That’s is so sweet and thoughtful.
About this Google email feature. Will Google more about it because who knows right?
Tear!Beautiful letter! I never heard of this, I think it’s a good idea.