Managing Old Online Accounts You No Longer Use
Launch library · evergreen read
Old, forgotten accounts remain a genuine security risk even when entirely unused, since they can still hold personal information and, if not properly secured, provide another potential entry point in the event of a wider data breach. Many people are surprised by just how many old accounts they still have.
Periodically reviewing which accounts you actually still use, and closing or deleting the rest, reduces your overall exposure and shrinks the amount of personal information scattered rather loosely across the internet over time. An hour spent doing this occasionally is genuinely time well spent indeed.
For accounts you cannot delete or no longer remember creating, updating the password to something strong and unique, rather than leaving an old, weak or reused password in place, offers a reasonable middle ground. This small step still closes off a meaningful amount of ongoing risk.
Using a password manager to identify accounts you have not logged into for a genuinely long time can make this periodic clean-up considerably more manageable than trying to recall every account from memory alone. Setting a reminder every six months keeps this task from piling up.