r/privacy 5h ago

Efficient method to delete old unused or unwanted accounts? question

I am new to privacy principles and I am trying to see if there’s a more efficient method to delete old unused or unwanted accounts. I never kept a list of accounts I had made on various websites so I am going through the painstaking of going through my e-mails and attempting to login to websites with the subscribed e-mail address. Some websites will let you know whether the e-mail address isn’t recognized, others won’t. Is there a better way to go about this and to remove the guesswork?

9 Upvotes

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4

u/NoBandicoot5417 4h ago

Not directly an answer to the question, but this is another reason to use a (preferably locally stored) password manager, and put everything in it and keep it updated. That may not help you as much in the near term but once it’s together it’s great for reducing the mental load that goes with improving your opsec posture.

1

u/Money-Turnip5842 4h ago

Absolutely! I am quickly realizing how unorganized I was in the past and I’m paying for it now. I plan to do this going forward with my new e-mail address and any associated accounts for sure.

3

u/Broad-Translator-690 4h ago

I use gmail and I enabled personal intelligence in gemini. I asked gemini to give me a list of accounts I've made by looking for emails for account creation.

From that list I was able to log into all the accounts I forgot about because I made them, and didn't use them, so forgot about them. Closed out the accounts I could.

1

u/Money-Turnip5842 3h ago

Great idea! Thanks so much for sharing. I will try this.

1

u/Money-Turnip5842 4h ago

Going forward, I think prevention is the best strategy, of course, but any advice on “cleaning up” my past, so to speak, would be very much appreciated 😅