arghhh - preventing inactive account deletion

[swedeheart]

BACKGROUND:

I have about a gazillion umptillion different online accounts for different reasons and purposes, as do many of us, I suspect. At many of these accounts I am inactive but would still like to keep them as I have things saved there I don't want to lose. (And no, the documents can not be moved as far as I know, other than one item at a time and by hand and that's just not doable).

Recently I discovered I had had one of my accounts deleted due to inactivity. I was able to reactivate the account as such but the files are permanently gone. This was a Yahoo account but my questions pertain to any kind of online account you can think of.



QUESTIONS:

I've decided to "activate" all my accounts one at a time on a regular basis to prevent further shocks like the one I just had.

My two questions are, is it enough to just sign in, or do I also have to perform actions while signed in, like moving things about from one folder to another etc. Or even post and/or receive post.

And, is there a minimum time for how long I have to stay signed in or can I sign in and be out again two seconds later and it will still be considered as activity?

[boxtops]

what sort of accounts, swedeheart? Email and stuff?

[swedeheart]

Email accounts for instance boxtops but it's a general question and hence it may be an impossible one to answer, I realise.

[ChuckFickens]

Just signing in should be enough.

Why not set them all up in something like outlook (or thunderbird) and then all you have to do is open the program once a month and do a full send and receive on all account.

[Old_Geezer]

Do they not send you an e-mail to say they are soon to close the account ? I don't have many, to much of a pain to keep track of, but the non-main ones I have are set to send warnings to the main account.

[swedeheart]

No Old Geezer that's what infuriated me. Perhaps I've neglected to tick some box I should'a. But who would NOT want a warning??

Chuck that sounds brilliant. I don't know how to set up anything whatsoever but I'll make a note of that until I drop my lappy off for its MOC (Ministry of Computing test;) Until then, thanks for answering the signing in Q! You're a rock!