When did MEGA start deleting old user accounts?
Executive summary
MEGA’s published policy states that free accounts are treated as inactive if no login occurs for three months, after which warning emails are sent and the account’s data becomes eligible for deletion [1]. The provided MEGA Help Centre pages describe current deletion timelines and related recovery windows but do not state when MEGA first adopted this policy, so a definitive “start date” cannot be established from the available reporting [1] [2].
1. What MEGA’s official policy says now
MEGA’s Help Centre makes plain that inactivity is defined as failing to log in at least once every three months for free accounts, and that MEGA will send warning emails before data becomes eligible for deletion [1]; paid accounts, by contrast, do not expire while on an active plan [1]. The Help Centre also explains several deletion-trigger scenarios — inactivity, storage-limit breaches, and other security or account actions — and confirms MEGA will attempt contact via the account email and in-app banners that include clear timeframes before deletion [3].
2. Deletion and recovery mechanics MEGA publishes
MEGA’s documentation provides additional technical detail: when users intentionally delete accounts the company holds data for at least 30 days during which recovery assistance is available [4], deleted items in the Rubbish bin are retained for at least 30 days with longer recovery windows for paid accounts, and there is no single set timeframe for deletion if MEGA initiates removal — users are advised to try Rewind and contact Helpdesk for recoverability checks [2]. For account resets (“parking”), MEGA will retain a parked account’s data for 60 days before it becomes inaccessible [5].
3. What the sources do not say — the missing historical start date
None of the supplied MEGA pages or the third-party guides provide a historical timeline showing when MEGA introduced the three-month inactivity rule or any earlier eras of account retention policy, so it is not possible from these documents to answer “when did MEGA start deleting old user accounts?” with a calendar date or policy-change announcement [1] [5] [2]. The Help Centre describes current procedures and retention windows but omits a policy adoption history or changelog in the provided snippets [1] [6].
4. How third-party coverage frames the practice
A privacy-focused guide summarises the consequences—permanent deletion and irreversibility if an account is terminated—and warns users to act before deletion if they wish to retain files [7]. That coverage reiterates the permanence of deletion but does not supply proof of when MEGA began enforcing inactivity deletions, reflecting a common gap in consumer-facing reporting where procedural details are emphasized over corporate timeline disclosures [7].
5. Behavior and workarounds in the wild
Developers and users have produced scripts and tools to periodically log in to multiple MEGA accounts to avoid inactivity-triggered deletions, which indicates community awareness of the three‑month inactivity rule and practical attempts to evade it [8]. These projects underscore that the effective policy — as documented by MEGA — is operational and consequential even if its origin date is not stated [1] [8].
6. Verdict and what would be needed to nail down a date
The verifiable answer based on the provided sources: MEGA’s active policy (as published in its Help Centre pages) subjects free accounts to a three‑month inactivity rule that can lead to data being eligible for deletion and includes warning procedures and recovery windows [1] [3] [2]. However, the sources do not document when MEGA first began deleting old or inactive accounts, so establishing a calendar “start date” would require MEGA’s corporate changelog, a dated policy announcement, archived versions of the Help Centre, or reporting contemporaneous to a policy change — documents not present in the supplied material [1] [6].