Have you ever thought what would happen for the accounts who had already died? If the dead person was a member of a forum, community etc, then probably his or her account would be deleted for inactivity. However, so far we haven't had such a mechanism for emails and other related products. But now, Google has come up with a new feature called, Google Inactive Account Manager.

This new feature allows Google account holders to decide what to do their accounts after their death or a certain time period. For an example the Google account holders can nominate a beneficiary to donate their digital assets. Or else the users can determine when their accounts expire (such as 6 months or 12 months of inactivity.

Once you have set up your account what to do when it's become inactive, it will get disappeared according to your preference. However after a certain period of inactivity, Google will send an email and a text message (If your account is connected to a mobile number) to the user to make sure he or she's dead and not inactive.

According to the Google product manager Andreas Tuerk, he says, "Not many of us like thinking about death — especially our own. But making plans for what happens after you’re gone is really important for the people you leave behind."

I have cited the below from Google, what Inactive Account Management feature does to your account and some frequently asked questions about this.

How do we detect activity?

We look at several signals to understand whether you are still using your Google Account. These include your last sign-ins, your web history, usage of Gmail (e.g., the Gmail app on your phone) and Android check-ins.

What happens when your account gets deleted?

Deleting your Google Account will affect all products associated with that account (e.g., Blogger, AdSense, Gmail), and affect each product differently. You can review the data associated with your account on the Google Dashboard. If you use Gmail with your account, you'll no longer be able to access that email. You'll also be unable to reuse your Gmail username.

Why do I need to provide a phone number for a trusted contact?

We'll use the phone number for the sole purpose of ensuring that only the trusted contact can actually download your data. Verifying the identity using a mobile phone number prevents data access from unauthorized people who might get hold of the email we send to your trusted contact.

What will trusted contacts receive?

Contacts will only receive notification once your account has been inactive for the specified amount of time -- they will not receive any notification during setup. If you chose to only notify your contacts of your inactive account, they'll receive an email with a subject line and content that you wrote during setup. We'll add a footer to that email, explaining that you've instructed Google to send an email on your behalf after you've stopped using your account. This footer might say something like this: