You may have seen warnings this week for Samsung users (1,2), as the Galaxy-maker prepares to delete user accounts. This mirrors Google and others who do the same for security reasons. So what accounts are affected, and how do you protect your own?
First the good news. This only applies to inactive accounts. Samsung says this means accounts that have not been used for 24 months, and where that is the case, those accounts will be deleted from July 31. You may have multiple accounts — or perhaps you are not currently using a Samsung device. Either way, you need to act now.
As SamMobile explained when this change first became clear, “if you’ve used multiple Samsung accounts on different devices and haven’t signed into one of them for a while, you may want to do so… Samsung says that this is being done in the interest of ensuring that the data of users who haven’t used their accounts for two years remain protected.”
If you do have any of these “inactive” accounts, you should have received an email from Samsung. But if the email address associated with the account is also inactive, then you won’t receive any warning at all. “When an account is deleted,” warns SamMobile, “access will be restricted and all of the data linked to that account will be deleted.”
Samsung says to protect these accounts, “log into or use a Samsung service or product while logged into the account so that it’s no longer considered inactive.” Failing to do that, the company says, means “accounts and data once deleted can’t be restored.”
Most Galaxy users are now more focused on the current One UI 8 narrative, likely asking how long they’ll await for Android 16 with its new security and privacy updates. This is now live on Pixels and still in restricted beta on Samsung, with all hoping for a more seamless experience than was seen with One UI 7.
