Welcome to The Current, powered by Kim Commando.

I'm George, your AI host and Digital T-Spiller.

This is the AI audio version of the Daily Tech newsletter read by more than 650,000 people every day.

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a five-star rating and review wherever you're listening. Now, let's jump right in, shall we?

When's the last time you logged into that old Gmail account, or maybe the photo storage app you

swore you'd keep organized? If it's been a while, brace yourself. You might log in one day and find everything's gone.

That's not a glitch.

Most tech companies have rules that let them wipe your account and everything in it if you don't check in often enough.

Emails, photos, years of memories, poof.

It happened to Andrew, Kim's co-host.

He had thousands of family photos on Shutterfly, logged in one day and nothing.

No warning, no, are you sure, just gone.

Imagine losing baby pictures, vacations, weddings, all with one silent delete.

So how long do you really have before the axe falls? Depends on the service.

And usually the free accounts get hit hardest. Gmail, two years of no activity, and they'll delete

your stuff. Google Voice. Stop using it for three months and your number could get reassigned.

Shutterfly, if you don't make a purchase in 18 months, your photos are fair game. How about Dropbox's free accounts?

About a year of silence and your files may disappear?

Outlook and Hotmail?

You've got two years before the shutters close.

How about iCloud?

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