"Accounts that are inactive for over 3 months may be automatically deleted." Please consider altering that policy.
"Accounts that are inactive for over 3 months may be automatically deleted."
Please consider altering that policy. Three months is way too short a time!
Why not 1-2 or more years instead of 3 months?
As of early 2022, the 3 month period was extended to 12 months. For full details, please visit: https://proton.me/support/inactive-accounts
Please note this policy only applies to free accounts (paid plans are exempt) and logging in once a year will ensure that your account remains active.
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Levianna commented
Dear proton team,
Please do not delete entire account!I think that you should not delete entir accounts instead you can clear their contents. Because person that owns that account may not be able to log in to the account for a long time. For example, due to illness or natural disasters. At the same time, a number of accounts may be linked to the ProtonMail account, using it as the only service of confirming identity or restoring access. I believe that clearing the account data should be used instead of deleting the account at all. That is, removing the content of the account, not the entire account! I think that the current policy of the company crosses out all the advantages of the service. Most users have bank accounts, accounts on various crypto platforms (if any), social media accounts tied to their email. In some cases, such as crypto platforms and bank accounts, additional identity verification may be required in the case of prolonged inactivity. Again via email. And all of this will become impossible if the entire account is deleted. I understand the possible problem with a possible lack of free space, so I suggest clearing inactive account data rather than deleting the entire account. This will save memory on your servers, solving the memory shortage problem and at the same time solving the problem of users who, for reasons beyond their control, cannot log in to the account for a long time but intend to continue using it in the future.
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Ioan commented
Thats really sucks!
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Hekside commented
New company policy is really awful. It is not good for such service.
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Heval commented
I think that it isn’t really good to delete accounts. On your official Reddit is a great proposition to solve the problem.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/u305e2/abandoned_accounts/
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socookre commented
I want to suggest the following for Protonmail as alternatives to deleting the account:
Freezing of inbox function after three to six months of inactivity, which is where new mails would not get into the box.
Throttling of free storage limits by half or three-quarters for free users.
One time fee for newer users if they choose to subject to alternative measures instead of outright account deletion, with the cut-off being March 31st 2022.
Clearing of all messages within the mailbox after a year of inactivity (except for those in "Archive" folder) and instead of deleting the account, put it in dormant state. (the method used by Yahoo).
Those uber regular email announcements from Protonmail should self-destruct months after being read, to conserve storage.
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Jo commented
I think that you should not delete accounts at all. Because person that owns that account may not be able to log in to the account for a long time. For example, due to illness or natural disasters. At the same time, a number of accounts may be linked to the ProtonMail account, using it as the only service of confirming identity or restoring access. I believe that clearing the account data should be used instead of deleting the account at all. That is, removing the content of the account, not the entire account! I think that the current policy of the company crosses out all the advantages of the service. Your competitor Tutanota does not have such a policy, which is like spitting in the face of its users.
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Kayoshi commented
Yeah. Account deletion is really dumb decision. What if i will be in hospital? Had you ever heard about email linkage to recovery methods and 2FA? And you will delete it?! I think, that data deletage is ok but NOT an account.
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jusgivithere commented
Yeah, what if someone was incarcerated and had no access to email. They should lose their secure communications? What if something in their account would exonerate them? 3 months is absurd. Should be no less than 3 years.
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Robert commented
3 months is short. Also when taking into account that you don't have IMAP for local copies with free accounts and webmail only, and any email and the key pairs will be deleted. So any copy of an email would also become inaccesible.
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Matthew Malek commented
I like this policy. Maybe 6 months would be a bit more fair but I hate how email names can be hogged by people who don't use them for years. I know some here that voted yes won't agree but I hope a middle ground of 6 months could work for everyone.
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Unknown commented
ATTENTION
// Inactive account delection policy is necessay and this request not to ignore it. if proton can state this policy clearly, it'll better for everyone while already missing that by staff several times or instead mention about magic posibilities and i see the service launched for many years so it's time for proton technologies AG to implement a automatic procesdure in proton platform.
I also have few accounts that lost passwords accidentally; even protonmail has stronger encryption but we do not interest to keep our data stored somewhere else long time or under custom policies. technogies get developed day by day then it doesn't mean there's a something may impossible to break ever.
ATTENTION
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TG commented
1) 3 years is better för free account and disopable accounts.
People can be sick / in jail / etc !2) an 10 years email account for 75 Euro ( the cheapest option ) + disopable accounts
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Jason Martin commented
I don't mind them cutting corners here to lower costs and save money. 3 months of not sending any emails from an email account is a very long time!
It might be reasonable to extend the time period for those with some form of paid account though. -
ML commented
I also support one time fee for non expiring account. Free or delinquent. Meaning not deleting data and accepting new emails. At least one year. And some kind of bonus system about total payment to increase expire time.
For plus etc. account you just had to pay what is due to restore.
There can be many situations where there is limits to access. And 3 months is just too low.
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Anonymous commented
I would also consider a one off payment for a non-expiring (or longer term) free accout.
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Twilight commented
Thank you original poster, I did not know about this and now I will reconsider donating to protonmail versus paying another privacy-oriented one that offers a lifetime account to those who have paid.
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Anonymous commented
Seriously messed up policy, and makes me doubt the judiciousness of the organizational team.
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L commented
I think for every 10 dollars the account has spent, either payment or donations. They should add a permanent 1 month to the "will be deleted in X" up to a maximum of 10 years. Cause after 10 years they are probably dead.
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pnobulls commented
Yahoo, does it after year, unless a person check their mail at least once. I don't care what is done, but a fair policy needs to be inputed, and it needs to be least longer, for many reasons.
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Sveinn í Felli commented
How about first reading the TOS:
"Although it is not the current practice now, we reserve the right to suspend or delete accounts that are inactive for over three months. This does not apply to paid accounts. Paid accounts are never subject to deletion as long as their paid status is active."So Free accounts are subject to deletion after three months (but haven't been enforced yet), but Paid accounts are never touched, as long as you pay.