If you have a Twitter username you haven’t been active with, or if there’s an inactive Twitter handle you’re coveting, listen up!
Twitter is sending emails to owners of inactive accounts warning them that they either need to sign in by December 11th, or their account will be deleted, and the username will be up for grabs. Any user that hasn’t signed in for more than six months should see the warning in their email.
“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 by email. “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.”
Twitter says the removal “will happen over many months — not just on a single day,” so you might not see a username be deleted exactly on December 12th. So, it might be awhile before you lose a username, or be able to grab one.
This move will have an impact on Twitter accounts belonging to deceased users. “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,” a Twitter spokesperson told The Verge.
You don’t need to have recently tweeted anything to keep you account, you simply have to log in and follow Twitter’s instructions.
In related news, usernames with under five characters can no longer be registered on Twitter, so that super-short username you’re coveting might not be available, no matter what.
The email being sent out to Twitter users has a subject line of “Don’t lose access to @(username).” Here’s what it says:
Hello,
To continue using Twitter, you’ll need to agree to the current Terms, Privacy Policy, and Cookie Use. This not only lets you make the best decisions about the information that you share with us, it also allows you to keep using your Twitter account. But first, you need to log in and follow the on-screen prompts before Dec. 11, 2019, otherwise your account will be removed from Twitter.