Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Morbidly Aweseome feature… Google Inactive Account Manager service

So I had this really surreal experience which I wanted to share with you guys. It’s sort of morbid so I apologize in advance!

I’m Not sure how many of you know about Google’s “Inactive Account Manager” service. Basically it’s just a pleasant name for an “e-Will”. What do you want Google to do with all your Google stuff after you… well.. die. Maybe not so important for some but very important for others like me that use Google drives for storing of key information on bills, investments etc. The kind of information you would want to pass on to others after you are… unavailable… to put it mildly.

The surreal experience was writing an email to Rashmi which I knew would only get delivered if I didn’t access my gmail account for 3 months, something which has never happened. Once I started writing the email, and the situation under which she would ever read such an email sunk in, there was so much I wanted to write in addition to the mundane logistics of which bills need to be paid by when.

Anyways, as morbid as the experience was, I encourage those of you that have made it this far in my diatribe to use this feature if you are a heavy google user and want to ensure that people have access to your google account in the unlikely event you are indisposed for an extended period of time.

Basically what it does is let you compose an email to up to 10 individuals and assign them access to your various google sites (Youtube, Picasa, Gmail, Google Drive etc). In the even that you don’t access your account for 3 months, and after Google has tried to contact you via alternate email and SMS, Google will send the email to the identified individuals along with providing them access to the services you selected.

It’s actually very useful so I encourage you to sign up for the service.

https://support.google.com/accounts/topic/3075532?hl=en&ref_topic=2864354

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