> You'll have to take an extra step if you want to hold on to content from a specific product that you haven't used in some time. If you want to keep photos from your Google Drive, for example, it's best to sign in to that particular service.
> That's because the tech company says it "reserves the right to delete data in a product if you are inactive in that product for at least two years. This is determined based on each product's inactivity policies."
I fail to understand why one needs to access every service on the platform to avoid losing data. All of them are tied to one Google account. Logging in to one (like Gmail) should ensure that Google Drive data shouldn’t be deleted. This is just stupid policy!
Large companies offering ad-supported “free” products cannot and must not be trusted. If you have some money and time, you can choose a different provider for email. Pick from (in no particular order) runbox.com, posteo.de, mailbox.org or mailfence.com. They’re quite cheap compared to other popular paid email providers and also support IMAP so that you can own your data and migrate if needed. If you need a lot of mailboxes for a fixed price, you can try migadu.com or mxroute.com (the latter hosts data in the U.S.).
For other services, the migration path is either complex and/or costly or impossible. Still, moving out should be explored.