Gmail announces it will permanently delete these emails in 30 days

Update, September 24, 2024: This article, originally published on September 23, now includes new information regarding the automatic deletion of other data used by Google.

While users of Gmail, the world’s largest free email service, are now aware that Google deletes inactive accounts after two years of being down, there’s another deletion process that the vast majority of its 3.45 billion users probably don’t know about. You can send a private email using Gmail’s confidential mode with a user-defined expiration date. Additionally, once the recipient’s expiration date has passed and you delete the original, it will be permanently deleted from your account after 30 days and cannot be recovered. Here’s everything you need to know about using confidential mode with Gmail.

What is Gmail Confidential Mode?

It’s probably best to start with what Gmail’s confidential mode isn’t: it’s not end-to-end encrypted, and it doesn’t add any additional layers of encryption to the default transport-layer security encryption that applies to all Gmail messages. If you want truly private email, you should consider something like Virtu to add end-to-end encryption to the Gmail platform, or switch to an encryption-focused email service like Proton Mail.

ForbesGoogle Chrome says goodbye to passwords on Windows, Mac, Linux and AndroidBy Davey Winder

Gmail’s confidential mode allows users to send emails and attachments with additional protections that allow senders to set the parameters under which authorized recipients can read the message. For example, as the sender, you can set an expiration date for the email, after which the recipient can no longer access it, as well as revoke that access at any time of your choosing. You can also require the recipient to enter a verification code sent via SMS in order to open the email.

Forwarding, copying, printing, and downloading the email will also be disabled. However, Google makes it clear that confidential mode cannot prevent someone from taking a screenshot of an email and forwarding it to someone else or keeping it for as long as they want. In fact, Google goes so far as to warn that malware “may still be able to copy or download your messages or attachments.” So it’s far from a truly confidential solution, but it may be best thought of as a simple privacy mechanism for sensitive (but not critical) emails.

There are some differences in how a recipient handles confidential mode messages depending on whether they use Gmail or another email provider. Gmail users simply open the email normally (unless a code has been requested), while non-Gmail users open the email, click a link to view the message, and are redirected to a page where they must enter their Google account credentials to access it.

ForbesGmail users should beware of insidious spyware that uses search historyBy Davey Winder

Make Gmail confidential mode messages disappear after 30 days

Gmail’s confidential mode doesn’t delete messages from the recipient’s and sender’s perspective by default. Once an email’s expiration date is reached, the message itself disappears from the recipient’s inbox or any other folder it was moved to. However, it remains in the sender’s sent folder. Unless the sender deletes it as well. That’s where the 30-day deletion process comes into play: “You can’t recover permanently deleted messages or messages that have been in the trash for more than 30 days,” Google said. So if you want your email to disappear for good, you’ll need to send a message in confidential mode with an expiration date and then delete the message from your sent folder.

How to use confidential mode in Gmail

The precise mechanics of Confidential Mode’s UI vary between Android, iOS, and desktop users, but the principle remains the same across all platforms.

Open the email composing window. Select Confidential Mode from the three-dot menu.

Choose your expiration date and whether you want to require an SMS passcode for verification.

Send the message.

If you have opted for code access verification, you must add the recipient’s mobile number after pressing send.

There are separate guidelines for Google Workspace commercial users, available here.

Auto-delete extends beyond just Gmail’s confidential mode

It’s not just your email messages that can be set to expire and be automatically deleted from the recipient’s inbox. Google also offers privacy options that allow users to set their data to be automatically deleted. Specifically, Google will let you set an expiration date that applies to what it calls your web and app activity data. This includes almost everything you do across Google services and devices that use them, as well as sites and apps. While the data Google keeps about your activities is designed to enable a more personalized user experience—think personally relevant content recommendations and faster search—not everyone wants to trade privacy for ease of use, for example. Fortunately, Google has a My Activity hub that gives users control over these things. You can view your captured activity data and manually delete it on the spot, or choose to automatically delete selected data.

Go to your Google Account and My Activity hub and click on the auto-delete option. This will open a new dialog box called “Choose an auto-delete option for your web & app activity.” This will give you the choice between three auto-delete time frames: 3, 18, or 36 months.

Google warns that some activities, depending on their precise nature, may expire earlier than the option you choose here. So, for example, general device data and IP address are automatically deleted from the Web and Apps section after just 30 days. Your location and YouTube history can be deleted from the same starting point, which offers the same three automatic deletion options for both.

Some Google data may be saved in other places, such as data associated with the Maps timeline feature. “You can delete most of your activity saved in these places,” Google said.