Twitter to remove accounts inactive for more than 6 months, free up usernames

Twitter is making a big change to its platform that will lead to purge of thousands of dormant accounts. The social networking company on Wednesday announced that it is going to remove accounts that have not logged in for more than six months. The move could lead to freeing up of thousands usernames as well.

Twitter said it will start sending emails to these dormant account holders with a prompt asking to sign in before December 11 to keep the account active. These accounts, however, will not be deleted overnight but will take many months. The company hasn't disclosed when it will make the freed usernames available to active users.

"As part of our commitment to serve the public conversation, we're working to clean up inactive accounts to present more accurate, credible information people can trust across Twitter. Part of this effort is encouraging people to actively log-in and use Twitter when they register an account, as stated in our inactive accounts policy," a spokesperson told The Verge.

"We have begun proactive outreach to many accounts who have not logged into Twitter in over six months to inform them that their accounts may be permanently removed due to prolonged inactivity." 

The move, however, will also impact accounts belonging to the deceased. Unlike Facebook, Twitter doesn't have any provision for "memorialize accounts."  

"We do not currently have a way to memorialize someone's Twitter account once they have passed on, but the team is thinking about ways to do this," the Twitter spokesperson added.

Twitter isn't the only company which has taken action against dormant users. Back in 2013, Yahoo freed up thousands of Yahoo IDs that were inactive for at least 12 months. Google also has a provision for inactive Gmail accounts.