It's not crazy at all.

Lost access to my old Gmail account recoveries cause it had been over 4 years since the last login. My M$ account recovery is not possible despite opening about 10+ cases with their engineers who fail to respond 100% of the time. And when they did it was automated. So without either recovery available ill just go to type in all the info I have about my old Gmail. Automated response forms with more automated rejections. I've tried it easily 300+ times at this point. Doesn't work.

You should have noted that 4 years of inactivity is enough to close any free provider!

If it was so important data isnt the onus on you to keep it locally backedup or at least login once a few months?

> over 4 years since the last login

Ohh come on now. Are they supposed to keep things around indefinitely? Most providers will wipe accounts after just a few months of inactivity.

To be sure, there's no technical reason why that should be necessary.

Agreed. As a comparison mobile phone credits in the UK seem to last at most 6 months, then the company close the account, resell the number, and eat your credit. And that's for paid service.

Yea they are actually.

I don't care about other providers I want my old gmail back.